Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare > Volume 14, Number 7 > Pp. 333-337

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RESEARCH Original articles

Home telecare technologies for the elderly

Taxiarchis Botsis ^* , George Demiris , Steinar Pedersen  and Gunnar Hartvigsen ^* 

^* MI&T Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Tromsø, Norway; Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA; Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine, Tromsø, Norway

Correspondence: Taxiarchis Botsis, Medical Informatics and Telemedicine Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway (Fax: +47 7764 4580; Email: tbotsis{at}cs.uit.no)

There are many home telecare technologies which have been developed specifically for chronic diseases and there are some more generic technologies that could be used as well. For home telecare, the equipment must be certified, the operational routines must be reformed, the infrastructure must be in place, the market must be prepared, the health authorities must be convinced that the system will work and the cost-effectiveness must be evaluated. Organizational and societal changes, such as cost reduction policies and an aging population, are the main driving forces for the development of home telecare, especially for elderly patients. At the moment there is no holistic model for scientific evaluation from different perspectives (e.g. clinical, legal, technical). We suggest that more research on home telecare and its effects needs to be conducted, in order to provide evidence for optimizing the use of this promising technique.

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