WELCOME project: What do Stakeholders want? In Depth Analysis of COPD Patients, Carers and Healthcare Professional Views Shereen Nabhani-Gebara 1 , Reem Kayyali 1 , Nada Philip 1 , Barbara Pierscionek 1 , Drishty Sobnath 1 , Evangelos Kaimakamis 2 , Eleni Perantoni 2 , John Chang 3 , Nikki Davies 3 , Roshan Siva 3 , Shona D’Arcy 4 , Anouk Vaes 5 , Martijn Spruit 5 , WELCOME consortium 1 Digital Media for Health, Medical Information and Network Technology, Kingston University London s.nabhani@kingston.ac.uk 2 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 3 Croydon University Hospital, United Kingdom 4 Royal College of Surgeons Ireland 5 Centre for Expertise for Chronic Organ Failure Netherlands Abstract — Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a growing health concern worldwide. Telehealth can facilitate integrated COPD care by providing an opportunity for remote monitoring, early diagnosis and clinical intervention. A design for a telehealth-based system called Wearable Sensing and Smart Cloud Computing for Integrated Care to COPD Patients with Co-morbidities (WELCOME) has been proposed. This study identifies patients’, informal carers’ and HCPs’ acceptance of and requirements for the WELCOME system in four European countries: the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Greece and Netherlands. Keywords-WELCOME; COPD; integrated care; telehealth I. INTRODUCTION COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is a major chronic respiratory condition that affects millions of people worldwide and its prevalence is growing [1]. Treatment is complex, necessitates polypharmacy and a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals (HCPs) involved in patient care [2-3]. In addition, COPD is frequently accompanied by a number of co-morbidities: chronic heart failure [4], diabetes [5], anxiety and depression [6], all of which complicate the clinical management. Telehealth is a way to facilitate the care of such complex patients through provision of remote monitoring and facilitation of integrated care. Telehealth can be defined as remote monitoring of patient’s health by HCPs using mobile medical devices to support early diagnosis and prompt intervention. [7-8]. It has been shown that telehealth can lead to a reduction in mortality and length of hospitalisation in diabetes, heart failure and COPD [9]. WELCOME is an innovative telehealth system that proposes to develop a wearable vest with sensors for monitoring of a number of physiological signals, such as chest sounds, heart sounds, ECG, etc. Other measuring devices to be used as part of the Welcome system are: a blood glucose meter, weight scale, blood pressure machine and an inhaler monitoring device. This will be accompanied by a patient/carers support system that will address disease/medicine education, lifestyle advice, mental health assessment and coaching etc The aim of this study is to identify COPD stakeholders’ acceptance of and requirements for the WELCOME system in the UK, Ireland, Greece and Netherlands. The stakeholders were identified as patients, informal carers (family members or partners of patients who care for them) and all HCPs involved in their care II. METHOD This is a qualitative study conducted in the UK, Ireland, Greece and Netherlands between January and June 2014. This included focus groups with COPD patients and their carers and semi-structured interviews with all healthcare professionals involved in the care of these patients. The focus group schedules for patients and carers were designed to include the following sections: perception of current care, oral medicine/inhaler adherence, perception of technology, telehealth and the WELCOME system overall and its components. The interview schedule for healthcare professionals included sections on views about the current healthcare system and its challenges, perception about the WELCOME system and its components, monitoring parameters and their frequency etc. To facilitate Greek and Dutch data collection, the schedules were translated from English to Greek and Dutch respectively. Data collection was conducted by moderators over 2-hour focus groups with patients and carers separately and 1-hour WELCOME project is funded by EU FP-7 2013 MOBIHEALTH 2014, November 03-05, Athens, Greece Copyright © 2014 ICST DOI 10.4108/icst.mobihealth.2014.257405