Initial Project Information: INFOCARE
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IGOS isar-t 		Updated: Jun 3, 97  

INFOCARE

Interactive information systems for health/social care

[ Coordinator(s) ] [ Participants ] [ Project Objectives, ... ] [ Other Characteristics ]

Project Nr: HC 1107 Group: VI Project Duration: 24 months
Key words:
Category:Information on Local Welfare Services
Summary: Provide telematics based information services to general public and professionals about health care, delivering multimedia information on diseases and health promotion.
Mission:INFOCARE will examine how to offer European citizens home or public remote access to information about local health and welfare provision. It is intended that they should take full advantage of existing or nascent telecommunications services regularly monitored for optimal user satisfaction. Expected project outcomes include mechanisms for service costs analysis, customer and user quality evaluation, and the implementation of demonstrated pilot applications to achieve them. Citizen information centres for personalised support are intended as a special feature.
URL:

Coordinator(s)

  • Mr. Francisco Del Pozo
    PRODIMED
    General Rodrigo, 6-10
    E-28003 Madrid
    Spain     		tel: 34 15 34 27 66
    fax: 34 15 35 08 29
    fpozo@teb.upm.es
    url:

Participants:

Name of InstitutionCity+Postal CodeCountryRegion
Ayuntamiento de Madrid Madrid E-28013 Spain ES3
UPM- Universidad Politécnica Madrid Madrid E-28040 Spain ES3
DIST Genova I-16145 Italy IT13
Biotek s.r.l. Genova I-16146 Italy IT13
DIDOC S.r.L. Milan I-20123 Italy IT3
Azienda USSL Territoriale n41 Milan I-20154 Italy IT3
BIOTRAST Thessaloniki GR-45622 Greece GR12
INESC Aveiro P-3800 Porutgal PT1

Project Objectives, Summary Description and Anticipated Results

The general objective of the proposal is to identify, from real experience, the critical elements (client usability, legal, organisational and technological) that has to be taken into account to design and get into operation Information Services for the European Citizens, to allow them the remote access, from their homes or other public information points, to information relevant to improve the access to and the use of the social and health resources available in their geographical area. This general aim will be approached to provide three different measurable outcomes:
  1. The selection and integration of the appropriate technology and telecommunication services.
  2. The installation (within the system) of procedures and tools to analyse service costs and to assess service quality from the points of view of the clients and the professional users involved.
  3. The installation and evaluation of real applications (Pilots/Demonstrators) to achieve the two previous objectives.

A main application will be demonstrated: citizens information centres, to facilitate the clients the knowledge on the available health/social resources and services offered in the area/region; to help them the assessment of the most appropriate choice to their individual problem; and to achieve the appointment of specific services and the recommendation on how to access the service.

These objectives will be approached with the hypothesis (strategy) that any system to provide information to the citizen has to give an efficient answer to two main questions:

  1. how to take advantage as much as possible of existing (or just coming) telecommunication services
  2. evaluation of the systems has to be structured as an operational evaluation/optimisation tool that will be applied continuously along the project life, to optimise user acceptability and cost-effectiveness of the service at all phases of the development cycle.

Other Characteristics of the Project:

Users involved
The European citizens (the clients) asking for some health, social or related service.The professionals of the health care system in charge of the management, the organisation, the design of the service or the provision of that service
Technologies and/or approach used
Telematics Platform for Health/Social Information to support: interactive iformation/retrieval services; integrated conversational/conference services, mailing services. Two telematic environment: Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) based services on Internet and Videotex Enhanced Man-Machine Interface (VEMMI) syntax for ISDN Videotex
Expected benefits for the citizen
The remote access, from their homes or other public information points, to information relevant to improve the access to and the use of the social and health resources available in their geographical area.
Expected benefits for the users of the application
A methodology to continuosly adapt to the evolving needs of (health/social) information of the citizens, implemented as operational tools to optimise planning, management, design and information-provision activities of the health system professionals
Expected benefits for the European Industries
To provide clear cut criteria on a fragmented market, rapidly evolving, identifying new business activities, taking advantage of the newly available (and coming) telecommunication services; with their new availability, access/usage costs, usability aspects, exploitation and security ssues.
Contribution to EU-policies
InfoCARE platform can be a significant contribution to the policies to respond the emerging challenges: disease prevention, consumer education, health education, health promotion, early intervention, help of people with multiple needs or chronic or life-threatening conditions.

Validation Sites

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