General Information

The population of Europe is ageing. The older the population, the higher is the frequency of chronic diseases. At the age of 65, individuals have one chronic condition on average; at the age of 68 that has risen to two.

This poses an increasing burden on health and social service delivery systems and affects the quality of life by inducing physical disabilities and frequent hospitalisations with social impairment as a consequence.

Better Breathing will reconfigure the normal care pathway for managing patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) by implementing ICT supported home hospital service (eCare) and, furthermore, set up eRehabilitation services on pilots in Denmark, Norway, Spain and Wales.

These services will then facilitate an online based network for an ePatient Community to break the social isolation associated with COPD patients, as well as provide an infrastructure for delivering eLearning materials, which will assist patients in managing their disease. This service will be a model for similar services for patients with other chronic conditions.

Different solutions will be tested on the different pilot site and each participating country will market validate their own solution.

The project has a 2 million Euro budget and MedCom International, representing the Region of Southern Denmark, is the leading partner. The project started in June, 2007.