1-3 per cent of all hospitalisations are due to fainting or near-fainting, which typically result in patients being hospitalised and monitored of cardiac functions for 1-3 days. The causes of fainting are often unknown or harmless, which means that many hospital beds may be occupied by patients that have no need for monitoring.

Using tests and the fully developed ePatch technology, Patient@home  is studying the possibility of moving such patients back into their own homes for monitoring. ePatch is a wireless platform for telemedicine monitoring that measures patient data and sends it on to the hospital via a portable receiver.

Clinical Study

The project is implemented as a large clinical trial, which inter alia will examine the possibility of moving cardiac patients to their own homes and simultaneously increase the number of satisfied patients and free hospital beds. Patients that stay in their own homes will be monitored via ePatch and contacted by the hospital 1-2 times a day.

The starting point of a major part of the project activities is to ensure a sound clinical basis of decision in terms of assessing clinical relevance and safety when using the ePatch device. The project defines how ePatch is to communicate with health professionals' other IT systems to secure a safe data transfer from home to hospital.

The Vision

ePatch is developed by DELTA. A solid working relationship between the collaboration partners have already been established through their joint participation in a former ABT project during which the ePatch was developed and prototypes tested.

It is therefore expected that at the end of the project period the results of the continued activities under the auspices of Patient@home will prove that it is as safe to be monitored by ePatch in the patient's own home as in a hospital. It is also expected that the patients involved have been content to be admitted as patients in their own home, and that the health care system on that basis will be able to free up beds and reduce in-hospital stays in the future. Aspirations are that the ePatch solution can be put into operation immediately after completion of the project, provided that the results obtained from using ePatch in the patients' own homes are positive.