More and more people all over the world suffer from chronic diseases, like asthma. The German-Greek bilateral research project Enhancing Chronic Patients Health Online developed online services for physicians and patients for use on smart phones or web browsers, in order to improve monitoring of those patients and to be able to detect possible exacerbations earlier. During the project we have developed smart phone applications and websites for both patients and physicians and a cloud-based health data management system. This demonstration shows how our system supports physicians and patients.
Chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, or chronic obstructive disease (COPD) are on the rise. For the proper treatment of chronic patients regular check-ups are inevitable. But due to lack of time or economic difficulties many patients do not get regular check-ups, which possibly leads to an exacerbation of their condition or even hospitalization.
In the project Enhancing Chronic Patients Health Online (ECHO)1 smart phones, cloud computing, and data analytics are used to enable regular monitoring of COPD patients and avoidance of exacerbations. Patients who use the ECHO System are able to answer questions on their condition on a daily basis using their smart phones. The ECHO System even enables patients to enter measurements, like heart rate or body temperature. After submitting the daily report to the ECHO System, the data is analyzed by the ECHO System. If the system detects an imminent aggravation of the patients’ health, the patient and the corresponding physician get notified and, if applicable, a treatment recommendation is given. Additionally, the ECHO System is able to store medical data like results of examinations or prescribed drugs. This extra data can be used to improve the analytics, such that imminent aggravations could be detected even earlier.
Section 2 presents a system overview and Section 3 presents our demonstration
scenario.
As shown in Fig. 1, the ECHO System is made up of 2 layers: Frontend-Layer
and Backend-Layer. The Frontend-Layer consists of web and mobile applications
for patients and physicians. The Backend-Layer contains the Health Server which
is a cloud service. The Health Server is accessible from the Frontend-Layer via
the Health API, which is a RESTful HTTP-API. The Health API enables the
applications of the Frontend-Layer to use the Health Services and the Analytics.
The Health Services can be used to store and query data from the Health Data
Repository, where all patients’ data is stored. The Analytics provide procedures
to analyze data in the Health Data Repository, e.g., simple procedures to analyze
the incoming daily reports or complex procedures which perform data mining.
The Orchestrations can be used to orchestrate Health Services and Analytics
to new complex services. Finally, the Management and Provisioning Engine is
responsible for managing all the before mentioned components. Details on the
implementation can be found in [
In our Demonstration Scenario we will show how the system can be used by
physicians and patients. Fig. 2 shows the steps that need to be performed in
order to monitor a single patient. The grey colored activities are administrative
tasks. The first step, which is deploying the TOSCA[
Create Doctors & Patients Accounts
Create & Maintain Electronic Health
Record
Answer Daily Questions
Perform Analytics
RecomCmreeanted ation each physician and each patient. The physician is also able to create accounts for his patients using the web application. Fig. 3 shows the physicians’ patients list in the web application. The next activity is the creation and maintenance of the patients’ electronic health record by the doctor. Before the patient uses the mobile application, the physician can enter all relevant medical data into the system. Since the ECHO System can not replace the physician, it is still needed that the physician examines the patient from time to time. The results of those following examinations can also be added to the electronic health record of the patient. We will show how physicians’ and patients’ account can be created and how maintain the patients’ electronic health record.
After the patient got introduced to the mobile application he can now fill in his data on a daily basis. This is the first of the dark-blue activities in Fig. 2. Fig. 4a shows the questionnaire on the smart phone which was already answered by the patient. After the submission of the report to the server, it is analyzed. ECHO If the analytic functions detected a possibly worsening of the patients’ health state, a notification is send to the physician and the patient via E-Mail, SMS or push notification. If there is a known treatment recommendation, the system will also send it along with the notification. Fig. 4b shows a notification in the mobile application. We will show how the mobile applications works and show the different outcomes of the analytics. Acknowledgments This research and development project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Framework Concept “Innovationen mit Dienstleistungen” (01XZ13023G) and is managed by the Project Management Agency at the German Aerospace Center (PT-DLR) Unit “Work Design and Services” (PT-AD).