The Ideal Profile of the Telemedicine User– Experience From Portugal

Abstract

Over the last few years, all over the world, telemedicine has been gaining momentum, and became more accepted by both health workers and patients as an essential tool in medicine. There have been a considerable number of studies whose results show the benefits of telemedicine programmes, not only in cost reduction and decreasing the number of exacerbations and hospital admissions, but also in improving health outcomes, with the patients having a better understanding of their illness and how they can manage it. This study is based on a tele monitoring programme being carried out in the village of Sabugueiro in Portugal. This village is one the first “Smart mountain villages” in the world, and besides having the concept of Internet of Things” applied to its infrastructure, it also has a tele-monitoring component, where blood pressure, blood glucose levels and weight of part of the population are monitored, in both healthy and unhealthy individuals. Abnormal changes of these parameters are very prevalent in our society, being responsible for a great deal of the national health system expenditure and being an important risk factor for cardiovascular events, the number one cause of death in Portugal. Therefore, their correct management is of vital importance in order to reduce costs, morbidity and mortality related to these events. However, this programmes results fell short of what was desired, with low compliance by the patients, who did not make the recommended number of measurements. The main goal of this study was to understand what can improve the compliance of a telemonitoring patient, what they find the most difficult to cope with, and when this kind of programme is useful.