Building the Hospital Without Walls - a CSIRO home telecare initiative

Aging populations and rising health costs have created the need to care for more patients in their own homes. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) is developing a project, Hospital Without Walls, which aims to provide continuous monitoring of patients in c ertain diagnostic categories. The key technology is a miniature, wearable, low-power radio that can transmit vital sign and activity information to a home computer, from which data may be sent by telephone line and the Intern et to appropriate medical professionals. The initial clinical scenario for this work is monitoring of elderly patients who have presented to hospitals following repeated falls. Accelerometers built into the radio sets will mo nitor activity and detect and characterise falls. Simultaneous measurement of heart rate will provide information about abnormalities of cardiovascula r physiology at the time of a fall. The system has been tested in laborator y conditions and is being adapted for initial clinical trials.