Involving citizens and their relatives more in the decisions about their own care is a vital aspect of effective chronic disease management.
The PICASO vision is to facilitate a shift from a reactive approach to a proactive and patient-centred care approach by improving the interaction between patients and their health care providers. Through PICASO, patients (and their relatives) will be able to receive contextual feedback on their health data and status, supporting them in being active participants in their own care.
PICASO will demonstrate and evaluate how patient empowerment and the care process can be supported, through its two separate trials, involving up to 60 patients and their relatives.
A dedicated, user friendly smart phone application will be developed and provided to patients and their relatives to give them access to the PICASO platform. The application will enable them to receive alerts, reminders and notifications, and they can provide data to the treating staff by sending messages with own observations and concerns.
The experiences from the PICASO trials will be used to analyse the particular challenges related to patient empowerment, the inclusion of patients in their own care, adherence to care plans and treatment as well as the inclusion of informal carers and families in the care process (joint care principles). The results from this work will lead to a better understanding of the intimate relationship between patients and informal carers; and how this may affect the whole care process.
