How can more patients get good treatment at home?

Our society needs better ways to follow up the growing number of patients with chronic diseases. Center for Connected Care (C3) has received funding from the Research Council's ICT plus program where BI will contribute with new knowledge on how to design and scale digital solutions for remote care.

Digitalization enables remote care of patients

The main purpose of the research project is to investigate how the use of Norwegian-developed technology can be scaled, adapted and evaluated to ensure high-quality remote care. This will contribute to support numerous patients who have undergone heart surgery in both Norway and China.

"China is looking for good solutions that can contribute to the development of a modern, future-oriented healthcare system with limited costs and major needs in a rapidly aging population", says Per Ingvar Olsen, C3’s head of research and Professor Chair at the Institute of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at BI.

Better understanding of how to succeed with digital collaborative solutions for external health and care is both medically and financially important. The project, with a three-year duration, combines studies within clinical medicine, technology, design and business models in the development of the digital solution.

Important knowledge development

The digital solution includes a simple and intuitive patient app, where one can conduct video consultation, as well as receive digital alerts when one should take medication. The patient app is also applicable in combination with medical measuring devices the patient can use from home, and the results transmits automatically to the app.

The solution is currently in use in Norway and will further be tested and implemented in China based on experiences from remote care in Norway. The project also enables detailed studies of challenges related to the export of Norwegian solutions to China.

"The project gives us the opportunity to learn about China's development of the health sector and not least about their way of designing and scaling new solutions in a country where everything has to be scaled to be of importance", says Olsen.

International cooperation

In the recent years, BI has established itself as a knowledge provider in the health sector. The project is connected to C3, a research centre for future health at Oslo University Hospital, where BI is research partner. The project is a Norwegian Chinese collaboration between Oslo University Hospital, and researchers at the Department of Informatics at UiO, BI Norwegian Business School, the School of Architecture and Design in Oslo and NTNU CCIS. On the Chinese side, Fudan University Hospital in Shanghai attends.

"The project offers a unique opportunity to compare the introduction of remote care in two countries with different health care systems", says C3’s CEO Kari J. Kværner, who is also Professor of health innovation at BI.