Keynote: The Pervasive Hospital Vision: Challenges for Data Management and Context Reasoning

The world population is aging rapidly leading to serious sustainability issues for public health systems. These systems struggle to provide adequate support not only for the growing senior population but more generally for patients affected by chronic non-communicable diseases that require monitoring and frequent follow-ups. The adoption of telehealth as a way for patients to obtain healthcare at their homes has experienced a tremendous increase during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of telehealth interventions are currently limited to remote audio-video communication between patients and health providers for assessment of health conditions with limited monitoring of health parameters through medical devices. It is the first important step towards the vision of a pervasive hospital that will take medical expertise, continuous health monitoring, early diagnosis, and in some cases personalized therapy administration beyond the walls of hospitals and into our homes.