Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico di Milano is a general hospital that can count on important excellence in various areas of care with a strong interdisciplinary approach. The Polyclinic is also the first public Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Care (IRCCS) in Italy for the quality and quantity of research produced in various fields of medicine.

In particular, the MACH (Centre for Multidisciplinary Research in Health Science) is a research centre dedicated to biomedical sciences and a centre of excellence for research and modern teaching on the topic of health in the world.

In 2020, among the many research and study initiatives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ca ‘Granda Foundation launched a study aimed at understanding the clinical evolution of the infection, improving clinical practice in the management of the disease and identify therapeutic areas of vaccine prevention.

The three yearlong project was conducted by a multidisciplinary team. It involves the creation of a Big Data database containing population data from registries and surveillance of COVID-19 cases collected by hospitals with clinical data (clinical manifestation, diagnosis, immunological profile, treatment and outcome) and public health agencies with large-scale information on the population and the capacity of the health system (e.g., access, admissions, ICU bed availability). The final availability of a large number of information will represent a valuable resource for the international scientific community to study the progress and management of the epidemic, both nationally and internationally.