Tele - assistance in pulmonary diseases : current status and open issues

In recent years an increased interest emerged to explore the effectiveness of advanced technologies for management of chronic respiratory diseases (1, 2). These interventions may be described as “telehealthcare”, a more comprehensive term that, regardless the specific professional delivering the intervention, includes technologies described so far under various terms such as “telehealth”, “telemedicine”, “telecare” and “telenursing” (3). Telehealth interventions may include: 1. Video or telephone links with healthcare professionals in real time or using store and forward technologies (4, 5) 2. Systems of care using internet-based telecommunication with healthcare professionals (6, 7) 3. Systems of care using both wired and wireless telemetry for telemonitoring of spirometry, respiratory rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturations involving feedback to the patient, which has been processed or authorised by a healthcare professional (8-11).