Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Authors/reviewers
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Peer reviewer login
  • Journal club
  • Alerts
  • Subscriptions
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

User menu

  • Log in
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

Login

European Respiratory Society

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Authors/reviewers
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Peer reviewer login
  • Journal club
  • Alerts
  • Subscriptions

Telemedicine and home care: controversies and opportunities

M. Vitacca, S. Scalvini, A. Spanevello, B. Balbi
Breathe 2006 3: 148-158; DOI: 10.1183/18106838.0302.148
M. Vitacca
1Divisione di Pneumologia, Veruno, Italy
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: mvitacca@fsm.it
S. Scalvini
2Servizio di Telemedicina, Fondazione S. Maugeri, IRCCS, Gussago/Lumezzane, Veruno, Italy
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
A. Spanevello
3Divisione di Pneumologia, Fondazione S. Maugeri, IRCCS, Cassano, Italy
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
B. Balbi
4Divisione di Pneumologia, Fondazione S. Maugeri, IRCCS, Veruno, Italy
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Key points

  • The costs for care assistance in chronic disease patients are dramatically increasing.

  • Telemedicine may be a very useful application of information and communication technologies in high-quality healthcare services.

  • The efficacy of respiratory disease telemedicine projects is promising (i.e. to tailor therapeutic intervention; to avoid useless hospital and emergency department admissions, reduce GP visits and specialised visits; and to involve the patients and their families).

  • The nurse practitioner is common to all the trials and appears to have a key role in the management of chronic disease.

  • Different programmes based on specific and local situations, on specific diseases and levels of severity with a high level of flexibility should be utilised.

  • Respiratory team members and the ERS need to identify the ideal candidates and the most appropriate systems to deliver telemedicine with an acceptable cost/efficacy and costs/benefits balance.

Educational aims

  • To motivate the interest of chest physicians in a new approach to delivering medical care.

  • To define the different types of telemedicine: telecare and telesurveillance.

  • To provide information on the main clinical results in this field and give examples of case studies.

  • To provide details on the recommendations and limitations of telemedicine programmes.

Summary This review focuses on the prospects, and possible drawbacks, of a new innovative instrument of care known as “home telehealth”, “telecare” or “telemedicine”. The main results from utilising telemedicine in respiratory diseases (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as the illustrative conditions) are presented. A principal goal of telemedicine is to improve access to healthcare services. During this process, savings in time and travel costs should be achieved, thereby rationalising access to medical care. The field of telemedicine is relatively new and expanding. In order to establish evidencebased guidelines for the design and implementation of disease management plans that employ telemedicine, further research is required. Telemedicine is not simply “technology” but an innovative medical approach (based more on a dedicated healthcare team than on high-tech instruments) that will help the medical team to care for patients and their families. In the future, it is hoped that telemedicine will form a valuable part of the disease management process, because, when used intelligently, home telehealth should supplement conventional delivery techniques and not replace them.

  • ©ERS 2006

Breathe articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.

PreviousNext
Back to top
Vol 3 Issue 2 Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on European Respiratory Society .

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Telemedicine and home care: controversies and opportunities
(Your Name) has sent you a message from European Respiratory Society
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the European Respiratory Society web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Telemedicine and home care: controversies and opportunities
M. Vitacca, S. Scalvini, A. Spanevello, B. Balbi
Breathe Dec 2006, 3 (2) 148-158; DOI: 10.1183/18106838.0302.148

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Telemedicine and home care: controversies and opportunities
M. Vitacca, S. Scalvini, A. Spanevello, B. Balbi
Breathe Dec 2006, 3 (2) 148-158; DOI: 10.1183/18106838.0302.148
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Technorati logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Connotea logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Full Text (PDF)

Jump To

  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

More in this TOC Section

  • Pulmonary renal syndrome: a clinical review
  • Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer
  • Diagnosis and management of PH related to chronic respiratory disease
Show more Reviews

Related Articles

Navigate

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Archive

About Breathe

  • Journal information
  • Editorial board
  • Press
  • Permissions and reprints
  • Advertising

The European Respiratory Society

  • Society home
  • myERS
  • Privacy policy
  • Accessibility

ERS publications

  • European Respiratory Journal
  • ERJ Open Research
  • European Respiratory Review
  • Breathe
  • ERS books online
  • ERS Bookshop

Help

  • Feedback

For authors

  • Intructions for authors
  • Publication ethics and malpractice
  • Submit a manuscript

For readers

  • Alerts
  • Subjects
  • RSS

Subscriptions

  • Accessing the ERS publications

Contact us

European Respiratory Society
442 Glossop Road
Sheffield S10 2PX
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 114 2672860
Email: journals@ersnet.org

ISSN

Print ISSN: 1810-6838
Online ISSN: 2073-4735

Copyright © 2023 by the European Respiratory Society