A European nation long considered one of the leaders in the telehealth movement is launching five ambitious home monitoring projects.
Denmark's Danish Digitization Authority reports that it will invest roughly $3.3 million in the projects, which will run through 2018.
They are:
1. Home rehabilitation and physiotherapy in and around Copenhagen aiming to reduce hospital readmissions.
2. Connecting young residents dealing with type 1 diabetes with hospital staff in Copenhagen and Zealand.
3. A home health monitoring program for patients with heart conditions in the northern region of Jutland.
4. Connecting residents in the southern part of the country and Zealand with diabetes, metabolic disorders and calcium disorders with healthcare officials through virtual endocrinology outpatient clinics; the project is expected to connect as many as 20,000 patient through video consults.
5. Prevention of Acute Admissions by TeleHealth (PAATH), in the southern part of the country and Svendborg to use home monitoring to connect older residents to healthcare providers, thereby reducing acute admissions; the project will include video consults and the monitoring of blood pressure and pulse rates, among other vital signs.
Denmark was perched at the top of a European mHealth market survey conducted this past April by Berlin-based Research2Guidance. The study was based on the 2015 mHealth App Developer Economics study conducted by R2G and HIMSS.
"In the eHealth adoption indicator Denmark seems to be the most eHealth-friendly country, followed by Finland and Spain," R2G officials said in a press release accompanying the report. "Those countries have in common high level of digitalization in doctor's offices and have above average patient's usage of mobile and internet technologies for searching health information and making doctor's appointments online."
Homepage image via Wikipedia.
See also:
mHealth in Europe: A mixed bag
Denmark agrees to follow Continua guidelines on telemedicine
Doctors in Europe using digital health -- but don't know why
