Towards Delivering Disease Support Processesfor Patient Empowerment Using

Mobile Virtual Communities

Bert-Jan van Beijnum, Pravin Pawar, Lamia Elloumi and Hermie Hermens

Telemedicine Group

University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.

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Outline of the Presentation

Introduction to the BraveHealth Project

Mobile Virtual Communities – Definition and Scope

Existing MVCs for CVD patients – Related Work

Proposed BraveHealth Mobile Virtual Communities (BMVC)

Patient Empowerment Concept and Model

BMVC Specific Organization

BMVC Case-study

Conclusions and Future Work

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BraveHealth ProjectPatient Centric Approach for an Integrated, Adaptive, Context-Aware Remote

Diagnosis and Management of Cardiovascular Diseases

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General Processes: Patient admittance, treatment and custom BraveHealth support

Clinical Processes: Assessment of patient and therapeutic procedures in patient

treatment

Disease Support Processes: Aimed at patient empowerment using proposed MVCs

A definition of MVC

Definition of Mobile Virtual Community:

“a mobile virtual community is a group of people who interact because of a common interest, problem or task and whose members interact independent of time and space”

Existing MVCs for CVD Patients – Related Work

Few of existing patient 2.0 social networks/systems

MedHelp, DailyStrength, Healia, PatientsLikeMe, IBM Patient

Empowerment System, WellSphere, FaceToFaceHealth….

Following CVD specific facets are addressed

Diet, medication, physical activity, physical exercise, education, disease

coping, smoking cessation…

Following CVD specific disease conditions covered

Essential (primary hypertension), Angina pectoris, Acute myocardial

infarction, Subsequent myocardial infarction, Heart failure…

Applications/tools available to patients and healthcare professionals

Trackers, posts, articles, health pages, user journals, groups, health blogs,

expert answers, encyclopedia, integrated bosignal monitoring & feedback

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MVC in BraveHealth - BMVC

A group of persons who use ICT mediated interactions to achieve a specific health related goal and who’s members interact anytime, anywhere The health related problem must be narrowly scoped

Persons in a group can play different roles e.g. nurse, caregiver, fitness coach

Addresses a well defined CVD lifestyle facet (medication, physical activity/exercise, dieting, …)

Offers a specific type of support (informational, instructional, emotional, appraisal / feedback) for patient empowerment

Explanation of Patient Empowerment Processes*

Informational support

The provision of content for the patients and carers in order to learn and advice about the heart condition

Instrumental support

Behaviours such as spending time and skills with the patients in order to improve their health condition

Emotional support

provision of trust, empathy, love and caring to the patient

Appraisal support

evaluative feedback that encourages patient to follow healthy lifestyle

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* Tardy C. H., Social Support Measurement, American Journal of Community Psychology

Proposed Model of Patient Empowerment Using MVC

Patient Cardiologist

Medication

Actors

CVD LifestyleFacets

PatientEmpowerment

Processes

PatientEmpowerment

Outcomes

Physical Activity / Exercise

Disease Coping

Diet

InformationExchange

EmotionalSupport

InstrumentalSupport

Feedback

EducationSmoking

Cessination

Better Informed

More Confident

Improved Acceptance

Enhanced Quality of

Life

Enhanced Social-

Wellbeing

Enhanced Self-

esteem

Increased Optimism &

Control

BR

AV

EH

EA

LT

H

MV

C B

ase

dS

up

po

rt

BR

AV

EH

EA

LT

H

MV

C S

up

po

rt

Re

sults

NurseGeneral

PractitionerInformal

Caregiver

BMVC Specification Organization

9

BMVC Specification

BMVC Platform Management

BMVC Template Management

BMVC Community Management

BMVC Communication

Services

BMVC Publication Service

CVD Information Community

Physical exercise support community

Physical activity support community

Medication support community

Diet support community

Quit-Smoking support community

BMVC Case-study - Patient Leo Nidas Leo Nidas is a chronic CVD patient. His current

situation is as follows: He has problems to comply with taking the prescribed

medication at the right time. L. Nidas is now member of a CVD medication support

community He needs to do physical exercises twice a day and has anxiety

problems doing so. L. Nidas recently joined the physical exercise support

community. He is interested in the latest info and knowledge about his

specific CVD condition. L. Nidas has become a member of the CVD information community.

Patient-Centric View of Proposed MVCs

11

Health Monitoring & TreatmentCommunity

Exercise Management Community (XRsize)

Medication Self-Support Community

Disease Information & SupportCommunity

Patient

Therapist

Nurse

InformalCaregiver

Clinian

Patient

Patient

Patient

Patient

Therapist

Therapist

Therapist

Patient

Patient

InformalCaregiver

PatientPatient

Patient

Patient

Patient

Patient

MemberClinician

Member

Clinician

Member

Member

Nurse

Leo Nidas

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Conclusions and Future Work

The proposed BMVCs are patient-centric

Each community has a well defined support scope and addresses a particular CVD lifestyle facet

Each community has related roles, services, services interaction policies and applications

A member participates in multiple communities – depending on required type of support

A community member takes on an appropriate role/s depending on the expertise

The proposed patient empowerment model sets the BMVCs apart from other communities

Presently we are using existing community engines (e.g. ELGG, DOLPHIN, Facebook) for the realization of BMVCs

Our aim is to have custom implementation of all BMVC specific components – Platform management, Template management, Community management & Individual communities.

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Acknowledgements