Citizen centered health and lifestyle management via interactive TV: The PANACEIA-ITV health system.

In the context of an IST European project with acronym PANACEIA-ITV, a home care service provisioning system is described, based on interactive TV technology. The purpose of PANACEIA-ITV is to facilitate essential lifestyle changes and to promote compliance with scientifically sound self-care recommendations, through the application of interactive digital television for family health maintenance. The means to achieve these goals are based on technological, health services and business models. PANACEIA-ITV is looking for communication of monitoring micro-devices with I-TV set-top-boxes using infrared technology, and embodiment of analogous H/W and S/W in the I-TV set-top-boxes. Intelligent agents are used to regulate data flow, user queries as well as service provisions from and to the household through the satellite digital platform, the portal and the back-end decision support mechanisms, using predominantly the Active Service Provision (ASP) model. Moreover, interactive digital TV services are developed for the delivery of health care in the home care environment.

The strategic plans of OTE concerning the development of telemedicine applications based on the Euro-ISDN technology.

OTE SA, the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization, is the major public network operator of Greece and aims to actually promote all services made available through this technology and more peculiarly that of telemedicine. Through its modernization plan in progress, OTE aims at providing wide/range, high/quality competitive services on the basis of customer oriented policies. Its activities cover, besides basic telephony (5.9 million lines), data communications, leased lines, maritime communications and value-added services. The public health service has a lot to profit from efficient use of telecommunications. The greatest challenge the health service is faced with, is the growing gap between the expectations of the population, and the resources that society can set-aside for health purposes. Increasing the level of efficiency and co-operation is therefore the best probable response to the challenge. Telecommunications may contribute to a more effective utilization of resources, typing together those that could be in benefit of the health sectors in the process of implementing a large number of telemedical services.