The ICT Innovation Platform (IIP) HealthSupport provides a basis for researchers, businesses, the public sector and healthcare providers to work together on ICT solutions to healthcare and wellbeing issues. These solutions aim to improve the quality of life as well as the quality of care and provide individually tailored care at any time and place to help care consumers manage their lives more efficiently. This whilst supporting healthcare professionals and voluntary care givers by creating a well organised network.

Personalised networked healthcare

The developments of care provisioning over the past century are twofold: on one hand healthcare professionals team up to deal with complicated disorders which has led to a need of so-called networked care. On the other hand, the aging and the active lifestyle of society members calls for individual (personalized) care, where care is carefully matched to the person and tailored to his situational circumstances and patients act more like care consumers. We depict the care that will be provided in a networked system and on an individual basis as personalised networked healthcare.

HealthSupport promises supporting role for ICT

From improved access and reduced costs to higher quality healthcare services in general, ICT can play a supportive and strengthening role in personalised networked healthcare. This is the emphasis of HealthSupport.

In healthcare the resulting ICT solutions will maintain quality and accessibility of care, while (at least) stabilizing the costs of healthcare, especially for the relatively large group of the chronically ill. The HealthSupport platform will connect the medical world with technological advances in ICT and embedded systems technology.

In well-being the resulting ICT solutions will support people in having an active lifestyle, empower them in self-management and provide access to tailored information, communities and services adapted to their needs. The HealthSupport platform aims to open up the world of lifestyle and well-being.

HealthSupport approach

The HealthSupport platform places the emphasis on care consumer-centred care and well-being services that meet today’s and tomorrow’s social and healthcare needs. Rather than endeavouring to replace human activity with ICT, the goal is to address those activities that can be supported by innovative ICT solutions. The platform will build and maintain a Dutch community and jointly develop a research agenda aiming towards the use of ICT for personalised networked healthcare. The following strategies will be pursued:

• Strengthening care consumer self-management

  Self-management revolves round care consumers (patients, healthy persons or persons at risk) with support from relatives, friends, and others living with or nearby the care consumer. Here the goal is to provide access to communities, healthcare professionals and information and to ensure that people receive the necessary care whenever and wherever required, i.e. support with maximum freedom of mobility. The care is personalized to the care consumer’s needs, (professional) knowledge and (potential) illness situation or history. Care also encompasses prevention, thus targeting people with an increased risk of illness, elderly persons wishing to remain independent in their normal living environments for as long as possible and persons who can benefit from active contact (those pursuing an active lifestyle or recovering from illness).

• Boosting productivity and co-ordination amongst healthcare professionals and voluntary care givers (0th line)

  This involves a restructuring of working spaces and a radical focus on an integrated 1st line healthcare support system that effectively connects care consumer needs to care provision. This integration cuts through all lines of care (0th, 1st, 2nd and 3rd).

IIP HealthSupport perspectives

Care consumers and voluntary care givers

Important issues from this perspective are active involvement of care consumers, self-management, taking responsibility for one’s own quality of life, care consumer initiated care and provisioning of medical information of appropriate and tailored relevance to the subject.

Healthcare professionals

Communication between care professionals and to care consumers, as well as support with decision based protocols, and guaranteeing continuity are important from the care professional perspective.

Healthcare managers

From this perspective the inter-working of the primary healthcare process to management information and logistic systems is important.