international journal of medical informatics 75 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 638–642 journal homepage: www.intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/ijmi An integral care telemedicine system for HIV/AIDS patients Cesar Caceres a,* , Enrique J. Gomez a , Felipe Garcia b,1 , Jose M. Gatell b,1 , Francisco del Pozo a a Bioengineering and Telemedicine Research Centre, Technical University of Madrid, ETSI Telecomunicacion, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain b Infectious Diseases Unit, Clinic Hospital, Villarroel 170, 08036 Barcelona, Spain article info Article history: Received 2 October 2005 Received in revised form 11 April 2006 Accepted 19 April 2006 Keywords: Telemedicine Home care services HIV AIDS Internet Patient care team abstract Objective: In this article we will describe a new approach to improve the quality of care of chronic HIV/AIDS patients, combining the integral care approach with a telemedicine system. Methods: Following the integral care approach, we included the patient in a multidisciplinary care team, covering the whole process of care with a telemedicine system that allows the patient to improve his/her self-care and to be remotely followed-up by the healthcare pro- fessionals. Results: This challenge has been met by the creation of the “VIHrtual Hospital” project. Its main goal is the definition, development, clinical routine installation and evaluation of a telemedicine service that complements standard care with a telecare follow-up for treating stable HIV infected patients, in a chronic stage of their disease, and study if that improves the quality of assistance and the expense per patient compared to the conventional control (without telemedicine service) that patients usually have. Although the study is not yet finished, in the discussion the main benefits and drawbacks of this telemedicine system are described. Conclusions: The main conclusion of the article is that a new home telecare model for chronic HIV/AIDS patients has been created and has been implemented through the “VIHrtual Hos- pital” in the Clinic Hospital in Barcelona (Spain). The architecture of this web-based system fulfills the demanding security and integration requirements of the IT department of the hospital. An easy-to-use graphical interface for both patients and professionals has also been developed. The low costs of the system allow us to cover a wide range of patients and promising results are being obtained regarding the use of telemedicine systems for improv- ing the follow-up care of chronic HIV/AIDS patients and for creating a new care model for this disease. © 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction During last years, mainly in developed countries, the changes that have occurred in the HIV/AIDS epidemic situation are * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 915500435; fax: +34 913366828. E-mail addresses: ccaceres@gbt.tfo.upm.es (C. Caceres), egomez@gbt.tfo.upm.es (E.J. Gomez), fgarcia@clinic.ub.es (F. Garcia), gatell@clinic.ub.es (J.M. Gatell), fpozo@gbt.tfo.upm.es (F. del Pozo). 1 Tel.: +34 932275586; fax: +34 934514438. astonishing [1]. Thanks to the use of the highly active antiretroviral treatments (HAART) we have begun to hear the word ‘chronic’ being associated to the HIV/AIDS [2], something that was unthinkable years ago. This chronification involves a 1386-5056/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2006.04.010