Summary
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.
Keywords
Assistive technology - ambient assisted living - health information systems - electronic
health records - electronic patient records - system integration - medical informatics
