By Rocío Bao
The President of the Madrid Association of Cardiovascular and Anti-Coagulant Patients (AMAC), Juan Manuel Ortíz Carranza, has created and designed eTAO, a project that seeks to gather information for the self-monitoring of patients on blood thinners that functions via GPRS communication with mobile terminals.
“The pilot project consists of integrating different technologies in the market to obtain a messaging service to mobile terminals that makes it possible to facilitate monitoring and medication guidelines. The mobile telephone terminal will have an IT application able to manage the information received and display it on a graphic interface. Said information will be sent over the network with all the safety guarantees used in the handling of health information sent over mobile and fixed networks,” explained Ortíz Carranza.
The health security protocols needed to safeguard the content will implemented on a remote administration server connected to a broadband network with remote access via a code so that healthcare professionals at each hospital can access it and see the patient’s INR data and thus administer their treatment through the mobile terminal.
The President of AMAC has developed this project as a response to the resistance to the concept of chronic patients on blood thinners monitoring themselves because of the high costs and cuts in healthcare being experienced in Spain.
In this regard, Ortíz Carranza said: “In Spain, the cost of a reactive strip costs the patient 6 euros and the equipment costs 700 euros, plus a training course. Under a normal self-monitoring regime, patients consume between five and six strips a month. That is the reason that the National Health Service (SNS) in Spain doesn’t subsidize that form of treatment and patients are forced to come to Primary Care Centers where a nurse will do the INR test they need.”
He said that a patient is completely dependent on the hospital and that causes serious problems for the elderly and people with disabilities as well as those with jobs who need to ask permission from their companies to have the tests done. “Elderly and seriously disabled people are obliged to go to hospitals with the high cost of transport and the assistance of carers,” Ortíz Carranza emphasized.
Given these circumstances, he said: “The studies carried out show that INR/Quick self-monitoring makes oral anti-coagulant medication more efficient with beneficial results such as reduced thromboembolic episodes and serious hemorrhages; reduction in the number and length of hospitalization periods; no dependence on manufacturer or country specific reagents; greater safety when living conditions change; a significant increase in the number of INR results within the therapeutic margin and as a consequence better tailored treatment and fewer INR fluctuations; and long term savings for the health system.”
Finally, Ortíz explained his motivation for creating the eTAO: “The main motives for this project were improving patients’ quality of life and, as far as possible, eradicating dependence on hospitals.”
