Therapeutic education unit for heart failure: setting-up and difficulties. Initial evaluation of the I-CARE programme.

Background: Education programmes are required in chronic diseases. The insuffisance cardiaque : éducation thérapeutique (I-CARE) programme was developed in France to promote the setting-up of therapeutic education units for chronic heart failure.

Aim: To evaluate the setting-up of such units, assessing the influence of training on the creation and organization of the unit, the problems encountered and the contribution of the dedicated educational tools.

Creation of standardized tools for therapeutic education specifically dedicated to chronic heart failure patients: the French I-CARE project.

Aim: To develop educational programs in chronic heart failure (CHF), creation of standardized tools for therapeutic education specifically dedicated to CHF patients was performed as a part of the French I-CARE project.

Methods And Results: A working group was constituted of cardiologists, nurses and dieticians, specialized in both therapeutic education and CHF. The personal patient's document consisted of a ring binder with dividers containing index cards for 5 units.

[Main issues and contributions of the evaluation of health care networks].

Health care networks correspond to a form of horizontal and flexible organisation, which consists in dealing with complex problems of health and long-term care. Networks rest entirely on the mechanisms of coordination between the various actors of care, whose keystone is the medical information flow. The challenge of the health networks evaluation is to prove the added value of a network organization, instead of a conventional disease-centred health care.

[Therapeutic education for cardiac failure patients: the I-care programme].

Therapeutic education is becoming increasingly important in the management of chronic diseases including cardiac failure. The I-CARE programme consists of an evaluation of the role of therapeutic education in France, creating standardised tools and setting up training sessions for therapeutic education in the context of cardiac failure. Approximately two thirds of the French centres contacted perform therapeutic education with their available means.

Optical memory card applicability for implementing a portable medical record.

The implementation of portable record based on laser card technology is discussed in terms of data structures for quick access and software tools to reinforce security and confidentiality as required by medical data. Experimental results from a field test with a laser card technology are reviewed with regard to implementation in a large-scale and public information system. An efficient data structure is described for storage purposes, and some proposals are put forward to secure stored data.