NEEDS

Self-care technology promises to be the missing link in the drive to:

• Improve quality of life for people with chronic health conditions as well as their caregivers.
• Promote healthy communities and lifestyles through technologies and systems that provide continuous personal health monitoring and feedback to all individuals.
• Assure awareness of and access to continuous health data collected in non-clinical settings.

The body of knowledge in this field, includes fundamental science, existing technologies, and their medical efficacy. This information is diverse and widely scattered making it difficult to identify the present state of the field. It is even more difficult to discern the direction that the field is moving, or could be caused to move, as driven by needs and technological opportunities

A Self-care Technology Information Center for dementia, heart failure, and general health will be available in February 2006. It will enable:

• Medical providers to find tools and information to help their patients outside of the clinical setting.
• Medical and technology researchers to identify existing projects that could help refine and improve their own investigations.
• Product developers and philanthropic organizations to understand what already exists and what hasn't been developed yet.

In the future we plan to expand the Self-care Technology Information Center to include additional conditions and user types (consumer and caregivers). We also look forward to providing a forum for community dialogues.