RENEWING Health: EPF to explore the perspective of telemedecine end users
As co-manager of the Renewing Health User Advisory Board EPF was co-organiser of the second meeting with users of the telemedicine services piloted in the context of the RENEWING HeALTH project. The purpose of RENEWING HeALTH is to implement multi-site randomised controlled trials for evaluating telemedicine services for patients suffering from three of the most common chronic conditions: diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The ultimate goal is to demonstrate that telemedicine-based services can improve quality of life, enable patient empowerment while optimising the use of resources in healthcare provision.
The event took place in Luleå, Norrbotten, Sweden on 18 June 2012. The objectives of this second local meeting with telemedicine user representatives were:
• To increase the understanding of how the telemedicine services piloted in Norrbotten are perceived by the different groups of end-users
• To involve real users of the piloted telemedicine services in defining, through a bottom-up approach, the user requirement framework being developed by the User Advisory Board
• To explore what are the conditions for sustainable integration of the piloted interventions into mainstream health services from a users’ point of view.
The Norrbotten County participates in the RENEWING HeALTH project by offering support for better self-management for diabetes and cardio vascular diagnosis (CVD) patients. The intervention involves health coaching of patients through personalised eHealth applications for long term treatment of type II diabetes and CVD. Both patient groups receive information regarding the importance of a healthy lifestyle and how it affects their disease by reducing complications and risks of other chronic diagnoses. The patients are informed how to use the prescribed healthcare web application as well as the telemedicine equipment they are provided with. After the patient education, individualised health improvement plans are developed by general practitioners together with each patient. Click here to find more information about the Norrbotten telemedicine pilot.
“Through this meeting with user representatives we are confident we are now able to identify what needs to be done in order to strengthen user acceptability of the telemedicine programme piloted in Norrbotten and integrate these elements into our sustainability plans”, concluded Camilla Andersson from the County Council of Norrbotten.
For more information please write to liuska.sanna@eu-patient.eu, EPF Programme Manager.