RESUMEN
Despite rapid changes in Information and Communication Technology, outpatient chronic disease management has changed very little in decades. However, the introduction of Telemedicine defined here as the use of remote patient-centred clinical services including the use of video and audio connections, telemonitoring and mobile applications provides us with an ideal opportunity to revolutionise care. Its appeal in cystic fibrosis (CF) care is clear offering better access to services, the opportunity of earlier intervention and improved monitoring and self management through virtual clinics and the use of real-time applications for adherence monitoring. It has the potential to reduce costs and has been shown to be effective in other chronic disease conditions. There is a lack of good quality data in CF and studies are needed to provide supportive evidence. Nonetheless, it would seem that telemedicine is the future of CF care.
Asunto(s)
Fibrosis Quística/terapia , Telemedicina , Manejo de la Enfermedad , Humanos , Cooperación del Paciente , Telemedicina/métodos , Telemedicina/organización & administraciónRESUMEN
With the NHS under increasing financial pressure and healthcare costs soaring year on year, it is perhaps not surprising that assessment agencies focus on cost-effectiveness analysis when assessing new therapies. Such an approach does not however, always take sufficient account of treatment burden, lifestyle and patient choice and therefore new equally effective but perhaps "easier to take" formulations and faster delivery systems for current therapies do not always take precedence in current treatment guidelines. In arguing that the NHS should pay for so-called lifestyle treatments in cystic fibrosis the counterintuitive nature of some of the current decision making is discussed and a more holistic approach to improve NHS efficiency is presented.