eHealth

eHealth

Expert & Leader of department: Prof. Ursula Hübner, Dr.

Expert in eHealth

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The medical care of chronically ill patients takes on special significance in view of the ongoing demographic changes and the fact that ever more people survive serious diseases like cancer. Making medical care at home possible for these sometimes multimorbid patients means a vast number of care workers are necessary: General practitioners, specialists, nurses, therapists, social workers - not to forget the relatives.

But how do these professional groups exchange patient information, e.g. on medication, wound care or acute changes in the medical condition? At present there are significant inadequacies in the multi-professional information exchange – to the detriment of the patient, but also at a cost to the healthcare system.

New approaches to eHealth are attempting to close this information gap.  IT-based integrated information syNew stems are being used to connect the different services through a safe - for professionals, transparent - information conduit into an efficient ‘chain’. These ‘information chains‘ contain data about case history, diagnosis, medical results, as well as nursing, therapeutic and social information. Like this, all professional groups participating in treatment will for the first time have access to all patient data, regardless of the IT-infrastructure available to each individual user. The big challenge lies in the preservation of data protection within this cross-sectoral network.

First field tests on an ÍT-based ‘information-chain-management’ have already begun to evaluate the effects on the quality of patient care. This approach is also of special interest to sponsors, as the acquired data give rise to comprehensive cost transparency for all services.

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