Trends
in e-Health and Telemedicine
Prof Dr. Francesco Sicurello
President of
IITM-International Institute of TeleMedicine; Professor of Medical Informatics,
University Bicocca of
Milan, Italy.
Abstract
<![if !vml]>
<![endif]>At a
global level, the healthcare systems have a great social, economic and also
industrial/commercial interest. Health is one of the major sector in the
services field, the largest “employer” and one of the most wide world
“industries”. It also has a relevant strategic importance, both for the
socio-economic impact, and for the high involvement and use of advanced
technologies.
Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) applications in health care are increasing in the last 30 years and they
support even at distance medical diagnostic and therapeutic activities of acute
and chronic pathologies and prevention and treatment of various diseases.
In this paper it will be illustrated
definitions and recent developments of e-Health and Telemedicine applications (in
particular in telediagnosis/teleconsulting and telemonitoring/telecare) and
some projects proposed and developed by IITM.
These ICT systems (using even new paradigms
and techniques as Grid and Cloud computing) in general improve patients’ health
conditions, reduce their troubles and save social costs for both citizen and
social-health institutions, and permit to obtain large database useful for
clinical practice, epidemiological studies and biomedical researches.