CITRIS is a major partner in an innovative international collaboration in telemedicine and heart disease.
In March 2012, Aalborg University (Denmark), CITRIS/UC Davis Health System and the Cleveland Clinic formed the Translantic Telehealth Research Network (TTRN), a five-year collaboration with three objectives:
- To prepare and launch an interdisciplinary,transatlantic research network on telehealth
- To develop synergy between telehealth programs between major institutions in the United States and Denmark
- To collaborate on developing and testing new telehealth technologies for heart patients.
The cornerstone project is entitled “In Vita” (Individualized Technology-Aided Assistance System in Heart Failure for Patients and Clinicians). The pilot phase of the In Vita study, underway now, is to determine patient characteristics and device characteristics so as to most effectively match user and device; this will be followed by a randomized controlled trial of an innovative program of telemonitoring of heart patients. The data from the pilot phase will be analyzed in Fall 2014 in a collaborative effort of the partners.
Birthe Dinesen, associate professor, Laboratory of Telehealth & Telerehbalitation, SMI, Department of Health Science & Technology at Aalborg University is a visiting scholar at the UC Davis Health System and CITRIS, helping to coordinate the In Vita effort and advancing her own research in conjunction with UC investigators.
The video below describes the project, and patient reactions to telemonitoring in Denmark.