Development and trial of ePoint.telemed - An open web-based platform for home monitoring of chronic heart failure patients.

In North Norway no routine home telemonitoring services for chronic heart failure has yet been established and hence no investigations in the field have been published, although large distances and a sparse population are causes for extra public and private expenditure on travelling for patients when they make a visit to the hospital. In this paper we describe the ePoint.telemed platform for home telemonitoring of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). The core of the platform is a dashboard, which is accessible through a browser window. Integrated with the dashboard are a blood pressure meter, a weight scale and a web-based patient questionnaire. The ePoint.telemed platform is a fully automatic internet based system meant for early warning in a CHF rehabilitation program. Unlike traditional remote medical technologies (RMT) building on dedicated medical equipment, we are applying easy-to-use personal health system (PHS) components geared towards the wellness and sports market. A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) has been started using the platform. 50 patients will be involved in the study with the aim of finding out if the home telemonitoring of CHF is clinically effective in Northern Norway and if it is cost-effective.