Telemedicine support to patients with chronic diseases for better long-term control at home

• Main Authors: Drago Rudel, Cirila Slemenik-Pušnik, Metka Epšek-Lenart, Stanislav Pušnik, Zdravko Balorda, Janez Lavre
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Medical Association 2017-02-01
• Series: Zdravniški Vestnik
• Subjects: home telemedicine; diabetes mellitus type 2; chronic heart failure; patient empowerment
• Online Access: http://vestnik.szd.si/index.php/ZdravVest/article/view/1553
• ISSN: 1318-0347; 1581-0224

<p>Authors in many scientific publications suggest that the telemonitoring of health parameters is a useful tool for supporting patients with long-term conditions staying at home and their self-management of the disease. Those patients are likely to benefit from timely and adequate response to deteriorated conditions detected by the telemedicine system. Almost all of the studies state that telemedicine provided as telemonitoring can be an effective add-on tool in the hands of patients and medical experts for the self-management of patients with, for example, heart failure or diabetes. In this paper the principles of patient telemonitoring are presented as applied within a telemedicine service provided by the Centre for Telehealth (CEZAR) at the General Hospital Slovenj Gradec (Slovenia). The centre supports patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 and/or with chronic congestive heart failure. The service was set-up in 2014 as part of a European project called UNITED4HEALTH. Since then over 550 patients from the Carinthia and Saleška regions (Slovenia) have been receiving telemedicine support for more than two years. The clinical outcomes of the telemedicine service published elsewhere prove that the selected telemedicine service model is adequate and the implemented technological solution is acceptable for all service users: the patients and the clinicians.</p>