Research Article
Towards Delivering Disease Support Processes for Patient Empowerment Using Mobile Virtual Communities
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_23, author={Bert-Jan Beijnum and Pravin Pawar and Lamia Elloumi and Hermie Hermens}, title={Towards Delivering Disease Support Processes for Patient Empowerment Using Mobile Virtual Communities}, proceedings={Electronic Healthcare. 4th International Conference, eHealth 2011, M\^{a}laga, Spain, November 21-23, 2011, Revised Selected Papers}, proceedings_a={E-HEALTH}, year={2012}, month={5}, keywords={mobile virtual communities telemedicine cardiovascular diseases disease support processes patient empowerment}, doi={10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_23} }- Bert-Jan Beijnum
Pravin Pawar
Lamia Elloumi
Hermie Hermens
Year: 2012
Towards Delivering Disease Support Processes for Patient Empowerment Using Mobile Virtual Communities
E-HEALTH
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_23
Abstract
In existing healthcare systems, the focus is on clinical processes to assess the health condition of patients, making clinical decisions and applying therapeutic procedures all under control of health professionals. However, patients with chronic diseases usually face many disease related problems that are not immediately under control or supervision of a health professional. Taking patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases as an example, these patients are recommended to make a number of lifestyle changes: increase physical activity, change diet habits, quit smoking and adhere to a medication intake regime. In this paper we propose the use of Mobile Virtual Communities to enhance the empowerment of patients by providing the ICT mediated social support functionalities that assist patients to realize the lifestyle changes needed.
