Reducing Risk from Chronic Illness with Life Style Changes Supported by Online Health Self-Management

Chronic illness has become a world-wide crisis, particularly due to the increasing size of older adult populations, causing the cost of treating chronic disease to rise. Shifting more responsibility to individuals with chronic disease through empowerment and disease self-management can help improve their quality of life and reduce costs to the healthcare system. This paper describes the forthcoming implementation of a unique and innovative program involving an online outpatient-centred approach to assist in lifestyle changes to combat chronic diseases through self-management in home and work environments, in collaboration with physicians and patient circles of care. The program involves an online support system for mobile patient devices through flexible and integrated modules tailored to the needs of specific patients and diseases. Modules are included that are oriented to education, training, monitoring, and continuing support for lifestyle changes (smoking cessation, exercise, healthy diets, weight loss, and peer support through message board and journaling functions) and psycho-social needs such as social isolation and depression. The proposed study will use an RCT (randomized controlled trial) to determine if this disease self-management system is effective specifically for Peripheral Arterial Disease outpatients in terms of improvements in lifestyle behavior, health outcomes and status, and overall cost effectiveness.