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Nonadherence to medication is a widespread problem in schizophrenia and is associated with poor clinical outcomes and inappropriate management and utilization of resources. The aim of the current investigation was to assess the impact of telemonitoring of medication adherence on symptomatology and service use in patients with schizophrenia. A total of 108 schizophrenia patients were randomized into three equal groups according to the approaches used to assess medication adherence; self-report, pill counting, and telemonitoring. Telementoring was achieved through an innovative new platform called @HOME. This platform offers clinicians early warnings about impeding nonadherence as well as information about the pattern of medication taking. Patient's adherence was observed over an 8-week period, during which patient's clinical status and service use were recorded. In comparison to the other two groups, patients using @HOME showed improvement in the Global Clinical Impression Scale and a significant reduction in emergency visits and medical appointments. The @HOME platform was highly acceptable by patients, caregivers, and professionals, and required minimal training for implementation. The results of the study suggest that the use of telemonitoring in psychiatric settings was both feasible and acceptable and may be associated with significant clinical and service related benefits.

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Free space optics (FSO) technology has demonstrated an increasingly scientific and commercial interest over the past few years. However, due to signal propagation in the atmosphere, the operation depends strongly on the atmospheric conditions and some random impairments, including turbulence and pointing error (PE) effects. In the present study, a single-input multiple-output FSO system with wavelength, spatial, or time diversity over the turbulence and non-zero boresight PE effects is thoroughly investigated. A versatile mixture composite model which accurately describes both impairments is employed for the performance evaluation. Novel mathematical expressions of the outage probability and the average bit-error rate assuming intensity modulation/direct detection and optimal combining at the reception are provided.