KeepInTouch: A telehealth system to improve the follow-up of chronic patients

With the progressive ageing of the western people, the number of chronic patients requiring a continuous follow-up by the physicians increases. Even though telehealth solution can be potentially effective in such a scenario, both the age factor and often the cost of the systems hamper the diffusion of telehealth systems. KeepInTouch is a low cost system for telehomecare conceived for the daily off-line monitoring of diabetic and cardiac patients. It exploits a mixed approach offering a simple TV-based front-end from the patient side, and a web-based one from the physician side. The web-based approach enables the authorized medical professionals to access the patient data from the web, exchanging useful information and providing textual feedback to the patient, all within the system interface. The patient's front-end is based on the Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) technology, exploiting an acquisition unit connected to the patient's certified biomedical devices (sphygmomanometer, glucometer, body weight scale) and with the interactive DVB-T set-top box in order to provide a user-friendly interface on the TV for people not accustomed with computers. The system is going to be used for a first clinical trial in Italy.