Health Telematics (AIM) Final Report
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MOBICARE

Mobile Health Care Telematic Services in Europe

Project Code:  A2124
Project value:  479,542 KECU
EC contribution:  275 KECU [*]
No of partners:  5
No of countries:  3
Duration:  18 months
Contact:
Mr. Elicio Garcia
Electrónica ENSA S.A. (Grupo INDRA)
San Rafael 6.
E-28100 Alcobendas-Madrid, Spain
Tel.: +34-1-396.70.00
Fax: +34-1-396.70.96

[*]: amount foreseen, a lower total sum was paid.

Overview

MOBICARE was oriented to promote the use of telematics on healthcare emergency systems in order to improve its efficiency on every aspect (economical, attention to the patient, reliability, etc.). MOBICARE proposed the use of a pan-European communications standard TETRA - Trans European Trunked Radio Systems, as the most effective and convenient, since it is mainly oriented to fleet management.

Purpose and objectives

The general objective of MOBICARE was to define which are the strategic actions to be taken in order to promote the use of healthcare mobile telematics services in the field of emergencies in the European Union.

This general objective has been divided into four more specific ones which have been determined in order to allow an easy measure and quantification of the results being obtained. These specific objectives were:

Results

MOBICARE was a first approach, seen from a pan-European point of view, on the possible future utilisation of mobile communication technologies in the field of health care telematics. The expected results of MOBICARE were oriented to define the users' requirements, to propose possible supporting communication technologies and to produce economical and financial guidelines which may assess future implementations.

It was hoped and expected that MOBICARE results could open new segments into the market for both, mobile communication technologies and health care telematics applications. As a consequence, the social impact of these future services was expected to be significant, as a new factor to improve the quality of life in Europe.

Results were expected to be obtained in three different stages:

  1. Capture of requirements in order to define those existing and/or future health care telematic services which are suitable and feasible to be extended to mobile locations. Field data coming from key health care organisations as well as from the distribution of a specifically designed questionnaire. This stage should provide useful data related to two main fields:

    1. Technological alternatives for future implementations.
    2. Health care scenarios upon which future services would be based. Metropolitan areas, small size towns as well as rural zones were considered in order to find a wide and complete spectrum of future applications.

  2. A second block of results should derive from the formal classification of the previously obtained field data. This should have been done from the points of view of both existing and future health care resources. Implementation criteria should have been produced, including network architecture modelling.

    Two methods were foreseen to be used for data processing:

    Both skills were intended for analysis of requirements on a structured fashion.

  3. The last stage of MOBICARE should generate a number of proposed strategic actions which could allow future implementations of mobile health care telematic services in Europe. Suggested actions would take into account technological considerations as well as economical and financial aspects. Health care organisations, administrations, Telecom operators and manufacturers were foreseen to participate, so that produced guidelines would reflect, as much as possible, the immediate reality.

Potential benefits for users

Health care services were expected to be improved by allowing fast and secure data & voice communications among the different actors which participate in the so denominated MOBICARE scenario: Hospitals, health care centres, welfare clinics, ambulances, mobile intensive care units, helicopters and, probably, other bodies like police, civil protection, fire departments, etc. MOBICARE focused mainly on emergency scenarios. Social benefits and at the same time significant costs reduction were expected.

As a matter of fact, MOBICARE did not achieve the expected results to a satisfactory extent and was not able to suggest guidelines for future implementation.

Reasons for not completely achieving the Results

The reasons for that can be seen on one hand in the project management and insufficient commitment of the partners, on the other hand in objective difficulties in capturing the field data, being prerequisite for all future actions.

Work done was oriented to decide which is the most convenient technology to be used. Based on a questionnaire, the relevant data collection on experiences and implementations was performed. The main problem was that very few actions across the world started in this area and documentation was very poor and difficult to find.

List of Deliverables

Year 1

Year 2

List of Participants

Dr. Paloma Alonso
Managing Director
Hospital General Mostoles
Rio Jucar S/N.
E-28935 Mostoles-Madrid, Spain
Tel.: +34-1-624.30.60
Fax: +34-1-647.19.17
Dr. Kees Bogards
Software Ontwikkeling Met Software BV.
Auke Vleerstraat 8
NL-7521PG Enschede, The Netherlands
Tel.: +31-53-30.96.82
Fax: +31-53-30.96.69
Dr. Juan Quemada
Head of Department
Department of Telematics Engineering
ETSI Telecomunicacion
Technical University of Madrid
Ramiro de Maetzu S/N. Ciudad Universitaria
E-28040 Madrid, Spain
Tel.: +34-1-336.73.32
Fax: +34-1-336.73.33
E-mail: jquemada@dit.upm.es		Dr. Kaj Lindecrantz
Svenska Telemedicin System AB
Hörsalsvägen 11
S-41296 Göteborg, Sweden
Tel.: +46-31-18.43.98
Fax: +46-31-82.89.87
E-mail: kaj@ae.chalmers.se

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