Technological innovations in asthma patient monitoring and care

Recent studies have shown that long-term monitoring of asthma severity can reduce asthma exacerbations, optimise drug therapy and decrease the cost of asthma management [National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, 1997]. The management of a chronic patient is a collective and cooperative enterprise that may exploit Information Technologies (IT) to improve the overall quality of care [Int. J. Med. Informatics 55 (1999) 87]. The aim of this paper is to present a web based asthma tool that significantly enhances public information and awareness to support illness prevention, patients independent living through user profiling and personalisation and collaborative work between health professionals, therapists, caregivers and patients through Tele-Care and Tele-Consultation. The system has been tested through a preliminary survey that took place in UK and Greece, (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.