Health information systems for home telehealth services – a nomenclature for sensor-enhanced transinstitutional information system architectures

Abstract

Home telehealth services for elderly people promise to contribute to a more efficient health care in the future. Though isolated services at a patient's home might make sense for some applications, the full potential of home telehealth only arises through its integration into existing health information systems (HIS) and care processes. We know about traditional HIS architectures. However, so far no models exist, helping us to understand and describe the upcoming sensor-enhanced transinstitutional information system architectures for home telehealth services. To develop a nomenclature for sensor-enhanced transinstitutional health information system architectures. We conducted two systematic literature reviews, assessing typical services and users of home telehealth and key characteristics of transinstitutional health information system architectures. The information retrieved from both reviews was integrated to build the nomenclature sought after. We present a nomenclature of information and communication technology (ICT) architectures for home telehealth services. The developed dimensions provide an overview on typical users, services, operating organisations, information flow, geographical reach and architectural paradigms of sensor-enhanced transinstitutional health information systems. The developed nomenclature helps us to better understand the upcoming ICT architectures. However, we are still in need of further experiences with their application.

mHealth Technologies for Chronic Diseases and Elders: A Systematic Review

“…Secondly, the identified system structures were compared, and similar ones were grouped into four meaningful clusters on the basis of attributes (frequency, direction, extent) of the information flow exchanged between the patient and the caregiver 2 (Stages 3-4). As suggested by Ludwig et al [22], we used the information flow exchanged between the users, services, and components of the system, as an indicator for the complexity of the sensor-enhanced trans-institutional information system architectures. Finally, in stage 5, taking into consideration the above points, we assigned a specific label and definition to each category and, through the combination of these four different types of interactions supported by specific technological configurations, a taxonomy of the existing mhealth platform was derived.…”

Health-Enabling and Ambient Assistive Technologies: Past, Present, Future

“…Such services are in the context of HIS usually called (enterprise) functions. As such application systems on the physical layer include sensors, HIS using such tools are called sensor-enhanced HIS [21,22]. As for the functions, listed in sec-tion 2.3, usually more than one health care institution is involved and since a person's home is typically also included, such HIS are also denoted as transinstitutional HIS ( [20] section 4.3, [22]).…”

Trends in Telecare Use among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Scoping Review

“…Moreover, institutional care is not enough to meet the growing needs of an aging society. Therefore, cost-effective complementary care alternatives are needed to support aging in place [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. In this context, telecare technology is presented as an efficient and cost-effective solution [ 6 , 7 ].…”