Remote access to medical specialists: Home care interactive patient management system

Diabetes management involves constant care and rigorous compliance. Glucose control is often difficult to maintain and onset of complications further compound health care needs. Status can be further hampered by geographic isolation from immediate medical infrastructures. The Home Care Interactive Patient Management System is an experimental telemedicine program that could improve chronic illness management through Internet-based applications. The goal of the system is to provide a customized, integrated approach to diabetes management to supplement and coordinate physician protocol while supporting routine patient activity, by supplying a set of customized automated services including health data collection, transmission, analysis and decision support. This experimental approach is intended to deliver high-level monitoring and treatment capabilities for diabetic patients in remote areas, enable early identification and treatment of disease complications, develop a comprehensive data base for research and development, and increase patient quality of life. There are three main components to the Home Care Interactive Patient Management System: Remote Monitoring, Education, and Communication. The Remote Monitoring aspect allows patients to input general health data into a sophisticated web site. Data analysis conducted by the computer system in conjunction with a physician monitors compliance and medical course, allowing for immediate modification of treatment regimens. Patients can access information regarding disease management, treatment options, and general health education via the Education section. The Communication link enables patients to post questions for the physician, as well as interact with other patients through a virtual support group. The Home Care Interactive Patient Management System is expected to improve patient care, compliance and resource utilization while simultaneously reducing healthcare treatment costs. Program applications will help establish methods and tools for diabetes management. This test bed will provide the means to conduct an aggregate analysis in order to correlate social indicators with healthcare needs to ascertain new treatment modalities and focus methods. It is intended to facilitate treatment decisions, provide improved means of communication between patients and health care providers and apply a standardized means of healthcare to all patients regardless of residence.