George Dafoulas

Telemonitoring in Chronic Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Heart failure (HF) is a growing epidemic with the annual number of hospitalizations constantly increasing over the last decades for HF as a primary or secondary diagnosis. Despite the emergence of novel therapeutic approached that can prolong life and shorten hospital stay, HF patients will be needing rehospitalization and will often have a poor prognosis. Telemonitoring is a novel diagnostic modality that has been suggested to be beneficial for HF patients. Telemonitoring is viewed as a means of recording physiological data, such as body weight, heart rate, arterial blood pressure, and electrocardiogram recordings, by portable devices and transmitting these data remotely (via a telephone line, a mobile phone or a computer) to a server where they can be stored, reviewed and analyzed by the research team. In this systematic review of all randomized clinical trials evaluating telemonitoring in chronic HF, we aim to assess whether telemonitoring provides any substantial benefit in this patient population.

Gerontechnology: Providing a Helping Hand When Caring for Cognitively Impaired Older Adults—Intermediate Results from a Controlled Study on the Satisfaction and Acceptance of Informal Caregivers

The incidence of cognitive impairment in older age is increasing, as is the number of cognitively impaired older adults living in their own homes. Due to lack of social care resources for these adults and their desires to remain in their own homes and live as independently as possible, research shows that the current standard care provisions are inadequate. Promising opportunities exist in using home assistive technology services to foster healthy aging and to realize the unmet needs of these groups of citizens in a user-centered manner. ISISEMD project has designed, implemented, verified, and assessed an assistive technology platform of personalized home care (telecare) for the elderly with cognitive impairments and their caregivers by offering intelligent home support services. Regions from four European countries have carried out long-term pilot-controlled study in real-life conditions. This paper presents the outcomes from intermediate evaluations pertaining to user satisfaction with the system, acceptance of the technology and the services, and quality of life outcomes as a result of utilizing the services.

The hackathon model to spur innovation around global mHealth

Abstract The challenge of providing quality healthcare to underserved populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has attracted increasing attention from information and communication technology (ICT) professionals interested in providing societal impact through their work. Sana is an organisation hosted at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was established out of this interest. Over the past several years, Sana has developed a model of organising mobile health bootcamp and hackathon events in LMICs with the goal of encouraging increased collaboration between ICT and medical professionals and leveraging the growing prevalence of cellphones to provide health solutions in resource limited settings. Most recently, these events have been based in Colombia, Uganda, Greece and Mexico. The lessons learned from these events can provide a framework for others working to create sustainable health solutions in the developing world.

Development of an mHealth Open Source Platform for Diabetic Foot Ulcers Tele-consultations

Diabetes is one of the foremost causes of death in many countries and a leading cause of blindness, renal failure, and non-traumatic amputation. Therefore, diabetic foot ulceration and amputation cause extensive burden on individuals and health care systems in developed and developing countries. Due to the multi-disciplinary requirements for the treatment of diabetic foot ulceration, telemedicine has been introduced to facilitate the access of the patients to specialized health professionals. In this paper the development of an open source mobile health platform is presented, able to support diagnostic algorithms, with the use of a smartphone.

Adaptation of the Model for Assessment of Telemedicine (MAST) for IoT Telemedicine Services

Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions and services may be used to support and extend the independent living of older adults in their living environments by responding to real needs of caregivers, service providers and public authorities. Telemedicine and telehealth platforms are among the various types of IoT services that could support the provision of health services. Current Health Technology Assessment (HTA) models that are used for the evaluation of telehealth and telemedicine services do not consider IoT aspects. HTA models would ideally need to be extended to include IoT platforms, for an optimal introduction of IoT in everyday provision of health and care services. This paper presents an initial adaptation of the Model for Assessment of Telemedicine (MAST) for IoT Telemedicine services based on a literature review of IoT, telemedicine and telehealth services characteristics. MAST involves assessment of outcomes within the following seven domains: Health problem and characteristics of the application, Safety, Clinical effectiveness, Patient perspectives, Economic aspects, Organizational aspects, Socio-cultural, ethical and legal aspects. The domains of the characteristics of the application, socio-cultural, safety and ethical and legal aspects were identified as those to be adapted to cover new challenges associated to IoT services.

A citizen telemonitoring strategy as envisaged for Central Greece

Renewing Health, a Pilot A, CIP/PSP project, funded from the European Commission, aims at implementing large-scale real-life test beds for the validation and subsequent evaluation of innovative telemedicine services using a patient-centric approach and a common rigorous assessment methodology. The services offered are designed to give patients a central role in the management of their own diseases, fine-tuning the choice and dosage of medications, promoting compliance to treatment, and helping healthcare professionals to detect early signs of worsening in the monitored pathologies. The current paper discusses the telemonitoring strategy as envisaged for Central Greece in the framework of the Renewing Health project.

An innovative platform to enhance the quality of life of people with mild dementia

ISISEMD project aims to provide a pilot of intelligent system to support independent living of persons with cognitive problems or mild dementia. The primary user of the system is the elderly but the services are also designed to support caregivers and relatives in patients daily care. Services and user scenario are analyzed together with four end-user organizations that participate in the project team. The solution is composed by different systems already available on the market, but not specifically focused on dementia management. All the systems are integrated under the ISISEMD platform that manages common functionalities (eg. login, reporting…) and the web interface for different users, too. Privacy and security are considered and the consortium assured these requirements by adopting commercially available solutions and compliance with all the applicable national and international regulations. Moreover, a market and business analysis is made before starting with the validation test.