Future Telehealth and Telecare Reference Design based on IoT Technologies: From Remote Monitoring to Smart Collaborative Services with Decision Support.

The demographic changes are producing aging societies across the world, resulting in greater demands on the health and care systems due to age-related disabilities and chronic diseases. Efficient telehealth and telecare services are needed to control the corresponding expenditures, by supporting increased collaboration between different professional and involving informal health care providers, and by empowering the patients to manage their health and well-being. Emerging trial systems for remote patient monitoring present preliminary solutions not exempt of certain limitations. We propose a future eHealth reference system architecture and core components, aiming at secure, smarter and more collaborative telehealth and telecare services. The implicit cooperation between the so-far separated domains of consumer well-being services and public telehealth and telecare services will be beneficial for all parties.