Västerbotten County Council is a regional authority with the responsibility for delivering primary health care to the 250 000 inhabitants of Västerbotten County, and specialised medical care to the almost 1 million citizens in Northern Sweden. Västerbotten County council owns and operates the University Hospital of Umeå, (picture centre) which also houses the Faculty of Medicine at Umeå University (main campus at upper left). Research and development are carried out in collaboration in a broad spectrum of subjects and disciplines relating to human health. One important area for research and development is biomedical engineering, comprising technical areas such as applied electronics, signal processing, measuring techniques, biomechanics and fluid dynamics. Education in biomedical engineering for Master and Ph D students is also carried out.
E-health services are well established in Västerbotten and most of the employees have a high degree of e-health literacy. The relevant employees of the County Council are fimiliar with e-health technology and have a positive attitude towards trying new e-health services. Many of the ideas for new e-health services come from practicing staff. Sweden in general has a very good infrastructure that can provide e-health services even in the rural areas. The County of Västerbotten has a separate net, AC-net, that provides all the different intitutions of the county with fast access and can transfer images and videos at high speed between different users.
Some examples of developed e-health services
Speech therapy
The County council of Västerbotten has developed several e-health serviced and one example is remote speech therapy. The service is aimed at people who have problems with speech formulation. Diagnostic groups include, for example, people who suffer from aphasia, dyslexia or Parkinson’s disease. All of the health care centres in Västerbotten county are equipped with video conference systems and are able to connect to the main hospitals in the area to get access to services provided by speech therapists. By providing this e-health service the access to speech therapy has increased tremendously within the county, saving both the speech therapists’ and the patients’ the time and travel costs. An advantage if this is that the patient gets more sessions and at the same time the county council can provide its residents with a higher quality care at reduced cost. According to a recent survey, patients are very satisfied with this innovative way of providing speech therapy and have indicated that they would recommend it to others.
Check-up monitoring - the Bag
Remote monitoring of physiological parameters is another recent innovation, developed by Västerbotten county council and a local company - Explizit. This service enables home monitoring of patients whose physiological parameters must be controlled continuously. Portable health monitoring equipment is used to take physiological measures including ECG, spirometry, pulse oximetry, and readings of pulse and blood pressure. The equipment is located in the patient’s home and is very user friendly and can used by the patients themselves. Health care professionals have access to the test results at all times and are alerted if any of the monitored values are abnormal. By providing home monitoring of physiological parameters doctors are able to make early and accurate diagnosis, provide close follow-ups, and costly hospitalizations can often be avoide.
Cardista
Another innovation developed by the county council focuses on children with functional heart murmurs. Cardiac specialists at Norrlands University Hospital provide telemedical consultation services to Skellefteå hospital. When a child has a suspected heart problem a cardiologist at Norrlands University Hospital can perform a remote examination by listening to the heartbeat of the child via an electronic stethoscope and diagnose the child based on the auscultation. Functional murmurs are common in young children; up to 60% of children aged 2-4 years may have murmurs. By performing remote examination referrals to Norrlands University Hospital can be avoided and response time is shortened.
Project leader Eva Lindh Waterworth, PhD
eva@informatik.umu.se
+46 (0)90 786 67 71
Research assistant Ulla-Maija Persola
umpesola@informatik.umu.se
+46 (0)90 786 93 80
Administrator Ulla-Britt Lindholm
UllaBritt.Lindholm@vll.se
+46 (0)90 785 84 94