About the Project

The Better Breathing project was an EU-funded market validation project under the eTEN programme. It ran between 2007 and 2009. The project had 10 partners from 5 European countries.

The aim of the Better Breathing project was to create a new model for continuous care of chronic patients.

The Better Breathing project focused on reconfiguring the normal care pathway for managing patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) by implementing ICT supported home hospital services and, furthermore, set up rehabilitation services on pilots in Denmark, Norway, Spain and Wales.

The project focused on four different aspects concerning the treatment of patients with breathing handicaps: eCare, eRehabilitation, eCommunity and eLearning.

In Denmark the patients were home-hospitalized using the patient-briefcase. This set-up was easy to use for patients as they could meet the health professionals from the comfort of their own home and and provided improved quality of living. The set-up is today a running service at the OUH Odense University Hospital assisted by MediSat.

In Norway the patients stayed at home and had TV and remote contral as the user-interface, which was easy to use and gave them access to home rehabilitation, that they would otherwise not be able to attend due to distances or disease-related immobility. The service is today being administered from the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine and Norut IT.

In Spain, Motohealth and TMLinkcare was used to ensure quality and learning to the patients. The set-up was tested between primary care centres and a lung function laboratory. Using these devices they were able to deliver rehabilitation to COPD patients. The service is today being further developed between the Hospital Clinic Provencial de Barcelona and TB-Solutions.

In Wales, a Health Monitor (DOKOBO) a questionnaire and monitoring devices made it possible for health care personnel to follow and monitor patients from a distance and thus intervene it the condition worsened. The service was offered to patients at the Carmarthenshire National Health Service Trust and the Informing Healthcare Wales.