Infrastructure and Procedure for Simulation of Cardiac Remote Monitoring: Experiences from the Telemedicine Agder Project

Telemedicine are remote electronic clinical consultations using technology for delivery of health care services. Telemedicine can be offered as a service to citizens living at home with an aim of reducing the number of hospital visits or visits to the General Practitioner and improving longterm cost-effectiveness. In Norway, a recent health reform has caused municipalities to re-organize their design of health services, with an increased use of telemedicine. In this context, the “Telemedicine Agder” project focuses on the organization, implementation and operation of large scale telemedicine services. In the project, a simulation of a telemedicine service for monitoring of heart failure was made in a clinical laboratory together with a patient, nurses and physicians. In addition, there were technical professionals and a research team present. This paper presents the laboratory infrastructure for the simulation and experiences are shared from the research project.