Pilot Study on a Community-Based Ubiquitous Healthcare System for Current and Retired University Employees

Entering the 21st century, the aging process and increasing chronic diseases in Taiwan society have become more prevalent. To deal with the problem, we develop a ubiquitous healthcare (u-Health) system platform that integrates wireless telecommunication, sensor network, and information technology to take care of patients having chronic diseases. The u-Health system provides not only telecare at home setting, but also a health community network which can further integrate medical care and life care and emphasize on patent humanity and dignity. For this purpose, a holistic u-Health system focusing on the physiological, psychosocial, arts, recreational, and even spiritual aspects of patients was implemented for people living in the community. In this study, we applied our community based u-Health system to the current and retired employees of National Taiwan University (NTU) who had at least one of the following chronic diseases: hypertension, diabetes mellitus and obesity, and required long term follow up and treatment. A community medical group (CMG) which is formed with family doctors from the Family Medicine Department of NTU Hospital, the Yung-Ho Branch of Cardinal Tien Hospital, NTU Health Center, and several other local clinics in Taipei City was in charge of the medical care along with a dedicated case managing nurse for the medical care at outpatient clinics, home telecare and 24-hour health consultation. Using this integrated community-based system is expected to provide a comprehensive and ubiquitous healthcare and eventually improve the quality of care by increasing compliance and reducing the complications of chronic diseases.