Using contact centers in tele-management and home care of congestive heart failure patients: The CHS experience

The Citizen Health System (CHS) is a European Commission (CEC) funded project in the field of IST for Health. Its main goal is to develop a generic contact center which in its pilot stage can be used in the monitoring, treatment and management of chronically ill patients at home such as congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. Such contact centers, which can use any type of communication and telematics technology, and can provide timely and preventive prompting to the patients are envisaged in the future to evolve into well-being contact centers providing services to all citizens. In this paper, we present the structure of such a generic contact center focusing on the telecommunication infrastructure, the communication protocols and procedures related to the vital parameters and signals, and finally the educational modules that are integrated into this contact center. We present examples of the communication means between the medical professionals using this contact center and the congestive heart failure patients, and elaborate on the telemedicine and educational issues involved.