STARC: More and more at home and less in the hospital, even for youngpatients with chronic diseases. The telemonitoring system of rehabilitation activities carried out at home has the objective of building a remote support system to ensure continuity of care and rehabilitation treatments. STARC is designed to reduce hospitalization needs and increase the acceptability of pediatric rehabilitation interventions.


The project stems from the need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the clinical assistance provided to vulnerable individuals, especially children, outside the hospital structure. Information technology, telematics and multimedia offer great possibilities also in the pediatric field to provide health services to the patient in his home, through tele-monitoring.

Remote patient management can help optimize therapy, increase acceptance, support the patient and his family, and prevent relapses involving hospitalization. The STARC project wants to develop and make available technological tools and procedures that allow an improvement in the management and control of rehabilitation activities carried out at home, with particular attention to the population in childhood.

Partners:

• Circle CAP (coordinator)
• IFM Infomaster SpA
• GGallery srl
• Giannina Gaslini Institute
• Department of Computer Science, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering (DIBRIS) of the University of Genoa

The project presented in response to the regional call for tenders for the 2007-2013 three-year program for research and innovation was approved for the value of € 942.411.99.

Description of the project:

The high specialization of care often requires the user to move to highly specialized centers far away. It is necessary to favor the reduction of hospitalization times both for economic reasons and - above all - to anticipate as much as possible the return to the family environment. In this context, the availability of a remote care management system becomes a strategic element for an appropriate management that is able to combine effectiveness, flexibility and economy of interventions.

The objective of the project is to develop and make available technological tools and procedures that allow an improvement in the management and control of home rehabilitation activities of individuals with deficits, specifically at the level of the child population. The rehabilitation process will be articulated in three fundamental moments, in which the technological solution to be achieved will be essential:

• Assisted rehabilitation: without a fixed frequency, the patient independently performs physical rehabilitation activities under the guidance of the system, which will allow both the control of the correct execution of rehabilitation exercises and a monitoring of the progress of his daily life.
• Clinical control of activities:  scheduled time of patient / doctor interaction, to allow the latter to remotely verify the status of the patient and the correct execution of the activities, acquire the vital parameters necessary to update the clinical picture, understand the trend of his interaction skills with the family.
• Tele-visit: on-demand patient / medical interaction, activated indifferently by one of the two, where the need for an unscheduled remote clinical control arises.

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