Taipei Citizen Telecare Service System for Hypertension Management in Elders

With one of the fastest-aging populations in the world, Taiwan faces significant cultural and healthcare cost challenges. Taiwan has identified health care and aging as top priority issues for public health and welfare. Taipei, the prosperous capital, has devoted itself since 2004 to promoting health policy in keeping with World Organization (WHO) Healthy City trends and the mottos Health for All in the 21st century and, more recently, Active Aging. In this report, we present a system for managing healthcare information in Taipei called Citizen Telecare Service System (CTCS), which primarily targets active elders, low-income and remote area citizens. The system integrates several important features of hardware and software infrastructure, including biometric measurement, hypertension risk assessment, clinic appointment service, video communication, medical referral assistance, citizen health record, and health/hygiene education programs. The evaluation focused on demand and acceptability of the system in different population groups and across different settings like home, day care centers, and nursing homes. In-depth analysis of enrolled participants showed a reduction in the percentage of participants with systolic Blood pressure (SBP) above 140mmHg from 36.38% to 27.24%, and a drop in the prevalence of SBP above 120mmHg from 75.05% to 71.24%. The learned experiences and preliminary results could be a valuable lesson to share with other cities around the world about public telecare services for citizens.