Abstract
The management of the increasing number of patients affected by cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic chronic diseases represents a major challenge for the National Health System (NHS) in any developed country. Chronic diseases are indeed the main cause of hospitalization, especially for elderly people, leading to sustainability problems due to the huge amount of resources required. In the last years, the adoption of the chronic care model (CCM) as assistive model improved the management of these patients and reduced the related healthcare costs. The diffusion of wireless sensors, portable devices and connectivity enables to implement new information and communication technology (ICT)-based innovative applications to further improve the outcomes of the CCM. This paper presents a telemedicine platform for data acquisition, distribution, processing, presentation, and storage, aimed to remotely monitor the clinical status of chronic patients. The proposed solution is based on monitoring kits, with wireless Bluetooth (BT)/ Bluetooth low energy (BLE) sensors and a gateway (i.e., smartphone or tablet) connected to a web-based cloud application that collects and makes available the clinical information to the medical staff. The platform allows clinicians and practitioners to monitor at distance their patients, according to personalized treatment plans, and to act promptly in case of aggravations, reducing hospitalizations and improving patients’ quality of life.
Highlights
Populations in industrialized countries are growing older and between one-third and one-half of total healthcare spending goes for the elderly in each country [1]
This paper presents a flexible and highly configurable hardware/software telemedicine platform for data acquisition, communication, processing, presentation, storage and sharing; it aims to monitor at distance mood, lifestyle, vital signs and in general the clinical status of patients affected by chronic diseases
This feature implements a very flexible and complete dashboard available to professional users to monitor the trend and have a complete picture of the patient health status, helping them in making decisions based on clinical evidences
Summary
Populations in industrialized countries are growing older and between one-third and one-half of total healthcare spending goes for the elderly in each country [1]. A significant part of such expenditure is related to the management of patients affected by the main chronic diseases: cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes [2] The prevalence of these chronic conditions is increasing among people of all ages, in particular in the older adults segment of population. A widely adopted approach to deliver healthcare services to chronic patients is the chronic care model (CCM) [8] This model is based on personalized care and monitoring planning, on the presence of a multi-disciplinary care team (general practitioner, medical specialist, nurses, etc.), on the patient self-management of care, on the exploitation of domiciliary assistance and periodic visits. This paper presents a flexible and highly configurable hardware/software telemedicine platform for data acquisition, communication, processing, presentation, storage and sharing; it aims to monitor at distance mood, lifestyle, vital signs and in general the clinical status of patients affected by chronic diseases.
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