%0 Journal Article
%T A telehealth integrated asthma-COPD service for primary care: a proposal for a pilot feasibility study in Crete, Greece
%A Ioanna G Tsiligianni
%A Thys van der Molen
%A Nikolaos E Tzanakis
%A Nikolaos M Siafakas
%A Ellen van Heijst
%A Christos Lionis
%J BMC Research Notes
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-0500-3-198
%X Therefore, a pilot feasibility study has been designed in Greece in order to establish this telemedicine service. Ten rural practices, in the island of Crete, with an average population of 2000 patients per practice will pilot the project supported by three pulmonologists. This paper presents the translated interfaces, the flowcharts and the steps that are considered as necessary for this feasibility study in Crete, Greece.Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma are common diseases with significant prevalence in the general population [1,2]. COPD and asthma consultations represent a large proportion of the total primary care consultations [3,4]. Studies have reported a considerable number of underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed cases in primary care clinical settings worldwide [1,5].Despite the high prevalence of COPD and asthma in Greece [6,7], these diseases are thought to be underdiagnosed [6]. Greece is a country with more than 200 inhabited islands, with the smallest islands having high percentages of elderly residents. Most of the islands lack regular secondary care access. In the mainland, there are a lot of rural and remote areas that also lack easy access to secondary care assistance. Often the General Practitioner (GP) or, at times, a non certified physician are the only health care providers for these patients. In addition, integration of primary health care in the country is not currently a high priority in the health care agenda [8].Good quality spirometry is the key to the management of these common respiratory conditions and can be accomplished in primary care [9,10]. However, the lack of availability of spirometry and lack of knowledge and training regarding interpretation of spirometric results have been cited as barriers to the early diagnosis and treatment of COPD and asthma in primary care [11]. An additional barrier identified is the lack of secondary care support and availability of specialized physicians (pulmonologists) to general
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/3/198