Renal telehealthcare system based on a patient physiological image: a novel hybrid approach in telemedicine

Abstract

This paper presents a novel renal telemedicine system, Virtual Center for Renal Support (VCRS), focused on the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) population. The VCRS design modifies the telemedicine paradigm, currently centered on communication technologies and monitoring devices, by emphasizing the way that biosignals are used to extract on-line knowledge to be used by physicians to solve current needs of this population. We begin with an ESRD review, from which a summary of major limitations of current renal health assistance programs is obtained. This is used to form the basis for the VCRS. This work is focused on a theoretical description of the technological architecture of VCRS, followed by a simulation experiment showing some preliminary results from a prototype of a patient physiologic image (PPI) computer component, the major knowledge creator of VCRS. Preliminary results show that PPI technology provides the ability to supervise internal variables representing the patient's dynamic behavior. The demonstrated relation between adequate control of extracellular volume and blood pressure suggests that VCRS is able to generate hypovolemia warnings before their occurrence during a hemodyalysis session delivered remotely. However, PPI is not restricted to kinetic models, which were initially chosen because of their successful results in the provision of dialysis. Preliminary results suggest the ability of this telemedicine system to enhance remote patient supervision and care.