Abstract: |
This paper aims to be a contribution to the discussion on the issue of innovation in healthcare since, in the
author’s perspective, the health sector, and particularly the Portuguese National Health Service, needs
changes in its "business model". There is a need of redirecting care provision to the citizen’s natural
environment, namely considering the opportunities offered by information and communication
technologies. For this purpose the authors surveyed projects already implemented in Portugal, within the
Portuguese National Health Service, related to home monitoring, in order to make a critical analysis of the
state of the art of ongoing projects. In this study, the authors identified four pilot experiences of home
monitoring, all targeted at chronic disease. In spite of some results of these experiments are already known,
there is a shortage of available information and scientific evidence, both about the implementation processes
themselves and about their clinical, technical and economic evaluation, which, in the opinion of the authors,
also hinders their assessment and dissemination. |