A Modern Informatic-Based System for Telemedicine: Adoption and Adherence in a Real-Life Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30953/thmt.v10.604Keywords:
Adherence, allergology, control assessment test, digital health, digital questionnaires, healthcare, informatics, personalized medicine, RCAT, rhinitis, telemedicine, UAS, UAS7, Urticaria Activity ScoreAbstract
Purpose: This study aims to develop an integrated telemedicine model to enhance the management and treatment of allergic disorders. By addressing challenges like the completion of standardized clinical questionnaires (UAS7 for chronic urticaria and RCAT for chronic rhinitis), the study seeks to improve data collection methods, increase patient compliance, and assist healthcare providers with timely and personalized clinical data interpretation.
Methods: The system was built on the basis of the platform WordPress and the interface created using the programming language Python (Tkinter) for generation of electronic medical records. Each record, placed in the corporate cloud, contains certain questionnaires which are available to the patients via individual links. The collected data were processed using the program MATLAB for the purposes of evaluation of compliance and their outcomes.
Results: 76 out of the 100 patients reported completion of their questionnaires via telemedicine, with 81% of the UAS being adherent compared to 57% for the RCAT. However, adherence declined with progression of the treatment cycles showing a downtrend on patient’s input during prolonged therapies.
Conclusions: From the results, it is apparent that telemedicine is useful in the control of clinical information in the field of allergology. On the other hand, the decrease in adherence with longer treatments calls for specific solutions including reminders to patients. Subsequent development will aim at using artificial intelligence and broadening the coverage of the system for other allergic disease blanket and improving patient care and its precision.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Stefano Palazzo, MSc, Cataldo Piarulli, Marco Zurlo, MD, Silvio Tafuri MD, PhD, Marcello Albanesi, MD, PhD, Michele Della Corte, MD
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