Using data from ambient assisted living and smart homes in electronic health records.

INTRODUCTION This editorial is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on "Using Data from Ambient Assisted Living and Smart Homes in Electronic Health Records". BACKGROUND To increase efficiency in the health care of the future, data from innovative technology like it is used for ambient assisted living (AAL) or smart homes should be available for individual health decisions. Integrating and aggregating data from different medical devices and health records enables a comprehensive view on health data. OBJECTIVES The objective of this paper is to present examples of the state of the art in research on information management that leads to a sustainable use and long-term storage of health data provided by innovative assistive technologies in daily living. RESULTS Current research deals with the perceived usefulness of sensor data, the participatory design of visual displays for presenting monitoring data, and communication architectures for integrating sensor data from home health care environments with health care providers either via a regional health record bank or via a telemedical center. CONCLUSIONS Integrating data from AAL systems and smart homes with data from electronic patient or health records is still in an early stage. Several projects are in an advanced conceptual phase, some of them exploring feasibility with the help of prototypes. General comprehensive solutions are hardly available and should become a major issue of medical informatics research in the near future.