Promoting health for chronic conditions: A novel approach that integrates clinical and personal decision support

Direct and indirect economic costs related to chronic diseases are increasing in Europe due to the aging of population. One of the most challenging goals is to improve the quality of life of patients affected by chronic conditions, and enhance their self-management. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture of a scalable solution, based on mobile tools, aimed to keep patients with chronic diseases away from acute episodes, to improve their quality of life and, consequently, to reduce their economic impact. Our solution aims to provide patients with a personalized tool for improving self-management, and it supports both patients and clinicians in decision-making through the implementation of two different Decision Support Systems. Moreover, the proposed architecture takes into account the interoperability and, particularly, the compliance with data transfer protocols (e.g., BT4/LE, ANT+, ISO/IEEE 11073) to ensure integration with existing devices, and with the semantic web approaches and standards related to the content and structure of the information (e.g., HL7, ICD-10 and openEHR) to ensure correct sharing of information with hospital information systems, and classification of patient behaviors (Coelition). The solution will be implemented and validated in future study.