The adoption of remotely controlled Home-care information systems that create paperless EHR,
seems to be inevitable in contemporary health-care environment and the developed system is our contribution,
towards this direction.
However,
there is always the risk of “information pollution”,
by the data-overload that all monitoring systems and their eventually associated electronic records can generate,
concerning both,
their data archiving and safeguarding process.
On the other hand,
increased technical and administrative regulations,
aiming to improve quality,
could also create an obstacle to achieving the primary goal that any EHR has,
i.e.
to improve the quality of care and patient’s safety.
The reason for this risk is related with the “consumption” of the,
rather limited in the field of Home-care,
human and material resources,
towards gaining compliance relevant technical-administrative mandates.
Presently,
we are still in the phase to re-implement,
in the presented above new software and hardware configuration, ECG-waveform detection and evaluation algorithms,
already published elsewhere [15]-[18],
supporting clinical decision making.
We are working also,
on the server to server communication,
with an EHR-system,
including also quasi-real time vital signs update,
based on the presented platform.
We have presented in this paper the research and development approach of a multifunctional Web-based framework,
appropriately designed to support the continuity of health-care information and management for both,
in and out of hospital care,
having also two special modules for home care management and supervision.
The system has some special features,
as it is the formation of CCRs and the transmission of referral letters,
using a semantically annotated web service [19]-[23].
The Non-Hospital Scheduling application,
offers a very flexible and easily adoptable module for the physician,
to schedule the homecare activities that are recommended for each particular patient,
while the Non-Hospital Supervision applications,
provide for both,
the surveillance and the monitoring,
of the homecare plan.
Regarding the system’s architecture,
we consider that the use of web-based techniques is appropriate for such applications,
since web-based models,
allow for easily accomplished remote access.
Furthermore,
Semantic Web [24]-[28] appears to be a feasible solution for the interoperability problems that occur between different health-care information systems,
while ontologies allow for accessing patient data stored in different electronic patient records (EPR),
expressing their meanings and relationship clearly.
Of course,
such systems should take into consideration potential problems that could arise due to the internet connection,
but we believe that a flexible design could overcome such problems.
In this presentation,
we have described the necessary technical details to make the whole concept fully unterstandable.
On the other hand,
addressing the Cardiac Imaging community,
we would like to point out,
that post interventional Radiology (or even post Cardiac-Operative) patients' monitoring at home,
could become a first priority in the general population,
due to the high prevalence of relevant dieases and the serious incidence on eventually ill-cared patients.
Therefore,
we have developed some specific additional software-tools,
addressing this discipline,
including:
An on-line Medical Imaging Referral support-tool,
based on the translation into Greek,
by our team,
of the guidance for appropriate selection of Imaging methods of the German Radiation Protection Commitee (Orientierungshilfe für bildgebende Untersuchungen – Einleitung und Tabellen,
Strahlenschutzkommission,
SSK,
2012).
A software-tool based on the combination of the Greek Codification of Imaging and Radiotherapy procedures,
the WHO ICD-10 Codification and the Greek cost-relevant DRGs-alike KEN-Codification that support the co-evaluation of the Medical and Economical aspects of Imaging referrals [19]-[23].
This on-line Medical Imaging Referral support-tool may be installed in any PC,
tablet or Smart-phone and can support,
especially the General practicioner,
during the selection of the optimal Imaging procedure,
for every specific patient.
Concluding,
we should mention that we are convinced that the future of the health-care industry,
lies on integrated systems and web-based applications,
including the semantic-web technology.
This composite schema will eventually allow for a solution,
overcoming interoperability barriers,
and an alternative approach to the inaccessible patient record data.