Formative meeting about technologies supporting distance rehabilitation and monitoring
University of Genova, 15th March 2018
BACKGROUND
To guarantee the economical sustainability of the sanitary systems by reducing hospitalization and the cost of homecare assistance is one of today’s major national and European challenges. At present graduates in Physiotherapy, together with nurses, OSS (socio-sanitary assistants) and family carers operating either in public or private treatment courses, are the most involved profiles in Liguria and Italy.
The European Project CARESS, funded by the Erasmus+ Programme (PROJECT No. 562634-EPP-1-2015-IT-EPPKA2-SSA), which started in 2015 and is coordinated by Si4Life, with Regione Liguria, Vittorio Emanuele II Ruffini as official partners, and A.Li.Sa. (Regional Sanitary Agency) as a supporting one, has highlighted some formative gaps in the field of homecare assistance, both for the socio-sanitary assistants and for physiotherapists.
The first results of the project reveal transversally identified gaps in the use of next generation technologies supporting remote monitoring and/or home or distance rehabilitation; these topics are mostly in need of an in-depth study, as the operators of the field point out (CARESS, 2016).
The use of ICT to support monitoring and distance rehabilitation is one of the key themes for innovation in the sanitary field, both public and private, which cannot be overlooked when training homecare professionals.
On these grounds the Department for Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics and Sciences has been promoting the I Level University Master in “Home-and Remote Rehabilitation Supported by Technologies”, that will help develop specific competencies in the use of ICT solutions supporting home-and distance rehabilitation, with the cooperation of the Department of Naval Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications and the Department of Information Technology, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering.
The Master, approved by Regione Liguria, is one of the 21 Masters co-funded by the European Social Fund 2014-2020, axes 3 “Education and Training”.
INNOVATION AND COMPLEMENTARITY
As partner in the European project CARESS, Vittorio Emanuele II Ruffini has implemented the Italian pilot course for the qualification of Socio-Sanitary assistants trained in the field of homecare for old and disabled people, following the actual needs highlighted by the cross analysis carried out during the project.
On this basis, specific competencies about ICT solutions supporting homecare assistance could not be missing in the list of training modules designed to give students the best preparation.
Therefore, students were offered a module on theory containing all the concepts necessary to obtain basic competencies to:
- Understand if the machinery is working correctly; - Be able to move or reposition it if needed;
- Report correctly about problems connected to it.
This context led to the idea of a formative meeting to let students of the Italian pilot see theory applied to real machinery, to get a better understanding of its usefulness and functioning as well as to analyse possible issues directly with developers.
The cooperation with the University of Genova, in particular with the DITEN and DIBRIS Departments, let the OSS see for themselves some of the technologies they will find at the old and disabled’s homes, mostly the ones used by other professionals of the field, like physiotherapists and others. They can also have a better understanding of the specific terminology and be able to widen their interoperability and team-working skills.
For this reason some of the researchers promoting the event were also involved in the training of the students of the I Level Master.