Enhanced Home-Based Medical Care Services Through Mobile Technology

摘要

One of the fastest emerging services in healthcare is the development of home-based or home-based healthcare services. This trend has been growing in Europe, North America and Australia, especially in the last five years. However, the major challenge is the monitoring and control of the quality of the service. In this paper, we propose a set of procedures for the quality control and monitoring of the service delivered, with the workflow being streamlined using mobile technology. The proposed model was simulated on different service management models and proved an assured tendency for an accurate tracking of the practice. Simulations revealed that upon the application of these procedures up to 70% (i.e. if 70% of recommendations are applied), 90% of common medical errors could be avoided. In the proposed model, patients (under well defined mental conditions) are evoked and encouraged to constitute a part of the control procedure. The awareness of the patient reduces the estimated error measurement largely. The model takes care also of the quality control of certain medical devices (portable diagnostic devices) that are usually used in such practices.