Denmark has rolled-out two telehealth pilots it now intends to implement nationally over the next three years. One of the pilots, already rolled-out at the Odense University Hospital, involves using a video conferencing service to allow foreign patients who don’t speak Danish to communicate with hospital staff.
The service is linked to a call centre with multi-lingual operators allowing foreign patients to have their needs and concerns translated to receive a better diagnosis. The first interpretation centre was opened at the beginning of June 2009. Following its success, regional implementation of the system is expected by 2010, with a national roll-out to be completed by 2012.
The second pilot monitors around 800,000 unstable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients from their home. Patients who are thought to be more comfortable at home than in hospital receive a suitcase of video conferencing equipment and monitoring devices and the nurses do their normal rounds over a video conference system where they record the patients’ vital signs.
