Pervasive Healthcare in the Danish Healthcare Services

The potentials of integrating Pervasive Healthcare in the Healthcare Services are promising because of the technology’s ability to transcend time and place. In the coming years, the Danish Health Services will face challenges such as a changed composition of age in the population, more chronically ill people, new images of diseases that increase the need for preventive measures, changes in diseases related to life style, and the appearance of new treatments. Pervasive Healthcare can potentially comply with such changes that are expected to increase the demand for health performances in the future.

Pervasive Healthcare is a health intervention based on IT. The term pervasive refers to the integration and the omnipresence of computer technology in the area of healthcare. Examples of Pervasive Healthcare include sensors placed in clothes measuring the condition of the patient and intelligent hospital beds, but this is just a fragment of the possibilities that Pervasive Healthcare might comprise. Pervasive Healthcare enables flexibility in healthcare.

Furthermore, ongoing structural changes within the Danish Health Services call for further specialization and centralization. These changes will increase the necessity of coordination and better communication. Pervasive Healthcare can possibly improve the communication and the coordination between the different parts of the health sector. E.g. one of the main issues considering the future healthcare is how to ensure continuity in treatment. The question is whether an integration of Pervasive Healthcare in the health sector will contribute to solve these problems.

 

Purpose of the project

The aim of the project was to create a general view of the potentials and perspectives in Pervasive Healthcare, including a definition and a demarcation of the concept. Furthermore, the project considered possible consequences and problems following an implementation of Pervasive Healthcare in the Danish health sector. Based on an overview of advantages and disadvantages the project assessed how Pervasive Healthcare can contribute to meet the new demands, which in the coming years will be introduced in the health sector. The project posed questions such as:

  • What is Pervasive Healthcare?
  • How can Pervasive Healthcare contribute to comply with the challenges in the area of healthcare?
  • What technologies are available at the moment and in the short term?
  • What negative consequences might an increased use of Pervasive Healthcare generate?
  • What are the preconditions for an implementation of Pervasive Healthcare?
  • What are the biggest barriers considering an implementation of Pervasive Healthcare?
  • What should Denmark be aiming at?

 

Methodology

The Danish Board of Technology appointed an interdisciplinary working group. The group was responsible for generating an overview of the possible, concrete health performances that Pervasive Healthcare can be used for in the future. Besides discussing the above listed questions, the working group was challenged to outline the perspectives that will be the result of an implementation of Pervasive Healthcare by drawing on cases based on existing or possible use of Pervasive Healthcare.

The course of the project included a workshop, where interested parties of the health sector got an opportunity to contribute to the discussion. The results of the workshop together with the discussions of the working group forms the conclusion in the report assessing Pervasive Healthcare in general. The report includes recommendations on how, and under what circumstances, Pervasive Healthcare can be implemented within the Danish Health Services.

The working group consisted of:

  • Jane Clemensen, Centre for Pervasive Healthcare, University of Aarhus
  • Signe Vikkelsø, Centre for Health Management, Copenhagen Business School
  • Mette Mullerup, IT Healthcare, project leader of ‘The Digital Hospital’
  • Rita Lützhøft Andersen, Health administration, City of Copenhagen
  • Ole Winding, The Danish Society for Clinical Telemedicine
  • Klaus Phanareth, Telemedical Research Unit, Frederiksberg Hospital
  • Kjeld Møller Pedersen, Institute of Health Services Research, University of Southern Denmark
  • Stig Kjær Andersen, Department of Health Science and Technology, University of Aalborg

Time frame

The project was launched in September 2005 and ended in May 2006.