The Beppu Medical Association, Fujitsu Laboratories and Fujitsu Limited (Japan) announced in January 2017 the first successful trial of their mobile-application control technology which facilitates home healthcare work.
This new tool improves the confidentiality and effectiveness of home care services.
A technology to better control data sharing and confidentiality
Perform home care requires that health professionals (nurses, physicians, caregivers, pharmacists…) share patients’ data and communicate with each other to coordinate care.
To ensure that practitioners treat safely the medical information on connected devices, the technology developed by Fujitsu automatically changes the settings of the health application, such as mecial information (temperature, blood pressure …) displayed on the smart device in response to the situation, including time, place, and user qualifications.
Through a secure system (patient’s ID, user ID, password), only the right care provider has access to the relevant data when needed. These data are then inaccessible to practitioners who do not have sufficient qualifications.
Precisely, the features of the technology are as follows:
- Policy management functionality.
Managers can define in advance who can access medical information on the network, where, when and how.
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Policy control functionality.
Based on the configured policies, information from qualification identification of users and beacons installed in the house of the patient, displayed data can be automatically changed.
When the user Dr. X come to the patient’s home, the appropriate medical information is displayed on the application. When he left, the information disappears or becomes inaccessible.
A real life trial in 2016
Developed in partnership with the Beppu Medical Association, the tool has been field tested in the city of Beppu, Japan, both during in-home medical treatment and prescriptions preparation tasks:
- 1. Home care tasks
- Trial period: from March to September, 2016.
- Location: patients’ home in Beppu.
- 2. Prescription preparation tasks
- Trial period: September to December 2016.
- Location: medical clinics and pharmacies in Beppu.
The tests confirmed that the device, by effectively sharing medical information between practitioners, can improve the quality of medical care, preserving the confidentiality of personal information and increase the effectiveness of home care services.
It has been shown that smart devices could be actively sought in various ways to share the latest patient health data, via photography and recording of patient’s symptoms and their living conditions.
Moreover, it has been proven that managers could learn to set and manage policies after only twenty minutes of instruction.
Results: Health professionals are becoming more efficient but also quicker and the quality of home care is thus improved.
In the years to come, the Beppu Medical Association will continue to implement advanced technologies to improve the efficiency of home care.
For its part, Fujitsu will use technology developed by Fujitsu Laboratories to create more products to improve home care system by the end of 2017.
Fujitsu Laboratories will continue its research into extending the functionality of the mobile-application control technology and its uses in various fields of healthcare.