Personal healthcare illustrated - The example of the myheart project

“Personal Healthcare” often referred to as “Telehealth” is the prevention and management of diseases outside the institutional points of care. The paradigm shift is to apply healthcare whereever a person may be, at his home or on the move. This new paradigm will allow a much more frequent interaction of a professional or the patient himself with his health status. Even for ill people the typical frequency of doctor visits is several months, whereas with a personalized system care can be applied on a daily or even continuous basis. Such an approach is not only suited for remotely managing chronically ill patients but also for the very personalized prevention of such diseases. The current demographic development will accelerate the paradigm shift towards personal healthcare, because the growth of the percentage of elderly people among the population will lead to an increased prevalence of chronic diseases, which could not be handled with the traditional health system (in terms of personnel but also cost). The talk will illustrate this new paradigm using the example of the MyHeart project. MyHeart is the largest project of the European Union in the field of personal healthcare aiming to develop intelligent systems for the prevention and monitoring of cardiovascular diseases. The project develops smart electronic and textile systems and appropriate services that empower the users to take control of their own health status. The talk gives an overview of the project and focuses on the four health-related applications that the project is addressing: activity coaching, healthy and preventative living, neurological rehabilitation and heart failure management. The concepts address range from preventative care, which is widely believed to be the solution for the problem of the rise of chronic diseases, to the management of a chronic disease such as heart failure.