TElehealth in CHronic disease: mixed-methods study to develop the TECH conceptual model for intervention design and evaluation.

Objective: To develop a conceptual model for effective use of telehealth in the management of chronic health conditions, and to use this to develop and evaluate an intervention for people with two exemplar conditions: raised cardiovascular disease risk and depression.

Design: The model was based on several strands of evidence: a metareview and realist synthesis of quantitative and qualitative evidence on telehealth for chronic conditions; a qualitative study of patients' and health professionals' experience of telehealth; a quantitative survey of patients' interest in using telehealth; and review of existing models of chronic condition management and evidence-based treatment guidelines. Based on these evidence strands, a model was developed and then refined at a stakeholder workshop.

Home telehealth uptake and continued use among heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients: a systematic review.

Background: Home telehealth has the potential to benefit heart failure (HF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, however large-scale deployment is yet to be achieved.

Purpose: The aim of this review was to assess levels of uptake of home telehealth by patients with HF and COPD and the factors that determine whether patients do or do not accept and continue to use telehealth.

Methods: This research performs a narrative synthesis of the results from included studies.

A home daily activity simulation model for the evaluation of lifestyle monitoring systems.

Lifestyle monitoring (LM) technology is part of a new generation of telecare which aims to observe the daily activities of older or vulnerable individuals and determine if a medical or care intervention would be beneficial. The development and validation of new LM systems should ideally involve extensive trials with users in real conditions. Unfortunately, effective user trials are very challenging, generally limited in scope and costly.

Emotive computing may have a role in telecare.

This brief paper sets out arguments for the introduction of new technologies into telecare and lifestyle monitoring that can detect and monitor the emotive state of patients. The significantly increased use of computers by older people will enable the elements of emotive computing to be integrated with features such as keyboards and webcams, to provide additional information on emotional state. When this is combined with other data, there will be significant opportunities for system enhancement and the identification of changes in user status, and hence of need.