Digital Homecare is a collection of services to deliver, maintain and improve care in the home environment using the latest ICT technology and devices.

It is important to recognize the wide range of issues that are covered by digital homecare. This book shows a good selection of related issues, be it experience, technologies, managerial issues or standardization.

A very diverse 'audience'; elderly, people with chronic conditions, disabled, to name the most important groups, benefits from digital homecare, within the comfort and protection of their own homes.

1;Preface;7 2;Contents;8 3;Digital Homecare - An Introduction;10 3.1;References;12 4;Information Highway to the Home and Back: A Smart Systems Review;14 4.1;The Global Village;15 4.1.1;Mobility;15 4.1.2;Identity;16 4.1.3;Data Privacy;16 4.2;Interoperability;18 4.2.1;Development Initiatives;20 4.3;'Harvesting' Professional Knowledge;22 4.4;Health Information Systems Interoperability;25 4.5;Community Care;25 4.5.1;The Demographic Time-bomb;25 4.5.2;"Creeping" Impairment;27 4.5.3;Self-Care Support & Lifestyle Improvement;28 4.6;'Smart' Care Support;29 4.6.1;'Smart Home' Systems;31 4.6.2;Smart' Wearables for a 'Smart' Environment;32 4.6.3;Help at Hand Anywhere;34 4.7;Embracing Change;34 4.7.1;Behavioural Compunetics;35 4.7.2;Process of Change and Change of Process;36 4.7.3;A Whole Systems Approach;37 4.8;References;38 5;Personalizing Care: Integration of Hospital and Homecare;42 5.1;Introduction: The concept of personalized medicine;43 5.2;Protocols and technologies for personalized medicine;44 5.2.1;Personalization of care decisions;44 5.2.2;Personalization of the interaction with the subject of care;47 5.3;Technologies and knowledge at home;50 5.3.1;Main research fields in the homecare context;50 5.3.2;Technologies and infrastructures to solve particular problems;51 5.3.3;The challenges of homecare;52 5.3.4;Future developments in homecare;53 5.4;Technologies and knowledge at the hospital;54 5.4.1;The situation;54 5.4.2;Solutions of particular problems;54 5.4.3;Challenges and future developments;55 5.5;Architecture for integration;55 5.5.1;Management of technology by healthcare organizations;56 5.5.2;Middleware approach;56 5.6;Discussion: benefits of integration;59 5.7;References;60 6;Standards for Digital Homecare;62 6.1;Why is standardization of digital homecare important?;63 6.2;Scope;65 6.3;Goals;65 6.3.1;Client's goals and needs;66 6.3.2;Client's control of data;66 6.4;Ensuring quality of the services;67 6.4.1;Quality management system;67 6.4.2;Quality indicators;67 6.5;Managing information;67 6.5.1;Quality of data;68 6.5.2;Quality of information;68 6.6;Managing the supporting systems in the patient's home;68 6.6.1;Quality of patient's measurements;68 6.6.2;System integration;69 6.7;Organizing the services of digital homecare;69 6.7.1;Cooperation;69 6.7.2;Management of processes;70 6.8;Standards for medical devices;71 6.9;The European Medical Device Directive 93/42/EEC;71 6.9.1;Definition of medical device;71 6.10;The essential requirements in the Medical Device Directive;72 6.10.1;Full device-related quality assurance system;72 6.10.2;EN ISO 13485;73 6.10.3;Risk analysis and solutions;73 6.10.4;Clinical evaluation;73 6.10.5;Post-market surveillance;74 6.11;Classification;74 6.12;Conformity with the (amended) Medical Device Directive;75 6.12.1;Technical documentation;75 6.12.2;Harmonized standards;76 6.13;Relation between Directive and EN ISO 13485;77 6.13.1;Relation EN ISO 13485 and EN ISO 9001;77 6.14;Software;78 6.15;Conclusion for medical devices in digital homecare;79 6.16;Implementing a standard;80 6.17;Who is responsible for a standard for digital homecare;81 6.18;References;82 7;Model-Based Methodology for the Analysis of e-Health Systems Diffusion: Case Study of a Knowledge-Centered Telehealthcare System Based on a Mixed License;84 7.1;Introduction;84 7.2;Potential barrier for diffusion: an integrative academic and business model;86 7.3;A methodology to analyze the diffusion of e-health systems;92 7.4;Description of an innovative e-health system;99 7.5;Summary;101 7.6;References;102 8;The Consumerisation of Home Healthcare Technologies;104 8.1;Introduction;105 8.2;Overview of Digital Homecare;106 8.3;Negative Aspects of Digital Homecare;107 8.4;Digital Homecare for the Patient's Support Network;108 8.5;Defining Consumerisation in Digital Homecare;109 8.6;The need for consumerisation;110 8.7;System Benefits of Consumerisation;110 8.8;Current State of Digital Homecare;111 8.9;Digital Homecare for future consumers;111