This selection of abstracts represents recent research and development performed in relation to challenges in healthcare due to the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020. These challenges relate to remote physical and mental care, preserving wellbeing and lifestyle and care delivery among various populatio…
This selection of abstracts represents recent research and development performed in relation to challenges in healthcare due to the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020. These challenges relate to remote physical and mental care, preserving wellbeing and lifestyle and care delivery among various populations such as children, elderly and chronic patients. This selection of research work is expected to develop into a set of services that will be implemented in the near future via care models using new hybrid approach of human touch-technology services. Thus, the selected abstracts presented here attracted the attention of not only clinicians but also industrial technologists, IT specialists and healthcare services executives as they are all engaged in the development, implementation and embracement of digital services in the healthcare domain. Covid-19 has created lots of opportunities for all key players in the digital health domain: hi-tech companies and med-tech entrepreneurs, healthcare organizations, patient groups and even governments and policy makers. Many of the technological solutions to healthcare challenges were ready for implementation before 2020, yet they were facing significant barriers, mainly administrative, financial and regulatory. For example, homecare technologies did exist before the Covid-19 pandemic, yet were not implemented nor embraced widely due to the lack of regulation in the field of telemedicine as well as insufficient understanding of the financial models for implementing it within existing or new care delivery models. In addition, some of the papers in the selection raise the need for a reform in educating the current and future generation of healthcare professionals, preparing them for the implementation and embracement of new technologies as well as new care delivery models. A major change is rapidly entering the healthcare domain. It is brought by the med-tech industry in collaboration with healthcare organizations. Barriers are handled and lifted as new care models are designed and implemented in hospitals and community care. At the same time the field of healthcare technologies becomes global and highly competitive, reminding to all of the companies engaged in that their solutions and products will prevail in this competitive market only if they constantly address users' changing needs. The aim of this scientific work collection is to share knowledge from research on the impact of ongoing changes on care delivery and management in healthcare organizations. It contains 10 abstracts presented in the EAI Pervasive Health conference 2021 and serves as an excellent opportunity to look forward to the future of medical care accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Hadas Lewy and Dr. Refael Barak Barkan
