Detailed breakdown of the project about the mutualisation of ICT experiments in the field of health.

, by Myriam Le Goff-Pronost

Confronting the actors’ methods with the practices in the field would be a full research-action approach. Some experiments could form the subject of learning environments in terms of analysis of ICT uses in the field of health. This project also meets the demand from the Region for an informational monitoring of the development of computer-based medical records. It will deal mostly with animating seminars to share actions and methods in order to draw a set of common indicators, success conditions, difficulties or failure cases in some experiments and of the common points found in different experiments. The final objective is to obtain a prospective position about the expected developments of telehealth in Brittany.

Significance for theoretical research.

It is an interdisciplinary project in human sciences invoking at the same time methods and concepts from sociology and economy, but also from operational statistics and systems engineering. The objective of the project is to suggest a set of indicators and original assessment methods of ICT uses in the field of health from the observation of Breton experiments.

Significance for applied research.

The project is based on the experiments led by the different members of M@rsouin. They consist mainly of experiments on health networks (AUTOMATE, JACOT) and the place of shared medical records (AUTOMATE, JACOT), on telemedicine (ALTERMED, teledermatology or telemedicine for prenatality), on home ICT uses logics (ALTERMED, T@PA, location of people suffering from chronic diseases as myopathy). The project would enable to position Brittany beside other regions and present itself as source of proposals for software and assessment methodology, what meets the expectations of the Ministry of Health and could be beneficial for the local authorities (ARH, hospitals…

Significance for tools developments.

The objective is to create a catalogue of Breton e-health experiments in order to further shared knowledge and the elaboration of shared references. A new data sharing space about e-health in Brittany could be fed within the M@rsouin website. It would gather every project in which M@rsouin members are involved, used methodologies, findings and prospects for future research.

Project organisation.

The project will be breakdown into 3 sub-projects. Each sub-project will be realised in partnership since they imply shared knowledge from the partners.

Sub-project 1 (SP1) handles the knowledge mutualisation in terms of engineering and prototyping, methods of assessment, measurement and appropriation of the new technologies by the actors (health professionals, patients and guardianship), competencies acquired on the basis of practical analyses.

Sub-project 2 (SP2) deals with the study of the shared patient files and its uses. The shared medical records which comprise the patient’s history (consultations, prescriptions, examinations) would be brought into general use in 2007.

Sub-project 3 (SP3) aims to create a database of telehealth experiments in order to obtain recommendations in terms of typology of the practices, useful data, assessment and diffusion methods (success factors and obstacles).

Bibliography, state of the art.

The theories involved adjoin sociology, economics, cognitive models and computer science with a common objective: the introduction of ICT in the field of health and/or for dependent people.