Web-based telemedicine systems for home-care: technical issues and experiences

The use of the Web for telemedicine applications seems nowadays a compulsor y solution: the Web has become a standardized infrastructure for giving acc ess to sophisticated telemedicine applications from virtually any machine a nd operating system. Such standardized communication platform guarantees ac cessibility and usability advantages to both customers and providers (patie nts and physicians). However. there are several issues that should be discu ssed in depth, with particular reference to all the applications related to the provision of care at distance, nowadays called telecare applications. In telecare applications the role of the patient becomes central, since he- she is actively involved in the process of managing care and treatments, an d since he/she (or his;her families) is responsible for collecting some mea surements and related information. In this paper we will discuss the genera l architectural and technical issues related to the development of Web-base d systems for telecare applications. relying on the experience we gained wi thin the telecare project T-IDDM (Telematic Management of Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus). devoted to assist the management and home-monitoring o f Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus patients. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.