4 ways of understanding telemedicine

For patients but also for healthcare professionals, solutions for remote care and medical assistance can take the most varied forms. Here are four possible lines of application between telemedicine and proximity medicine, told through the digital solutions proposed by Janssen Oncology

(photo: iStock / Getty Images). allow digital access to verified and reliable information: these are some of the objectives of telemedicine and proximity assistance, which are finding more and more concreteness through applications of various kinds, sometimes reaching the frontier of innovation and others - more simply - making the most of already established technologies. Much has been talked about and discussed about the accelerating thrust of the pandemic on all digital paths, and digital health is necessarily the sector in which this thrust has made itself felt most strongly.

When it comes to remote services for patients and healthcare professionals the examples are almost endless, even if each single solution falls into one of the many possible macro-areas: intelligent assistants, information portals, delivery services and of course remote and televised monitoring, in addition to remote access to your health data. All areas in which Janssen, a pharmaceutical company of the Johnson & Johnson group, has developed its telemedicine solutions. From oncology to hematology, the medical and therapeutic areas of application are the most varied, however in continuous expansion. That's what it is about.

The intelligent voice assistant

How do you take the drug? With what dosage? What interactions does it have with other drugs? Medical specialists and hospital pharmacists can ask these questions not only to experts in the flesh, but also to an artificial intelligence, in the form of a voice assistant. The solution proposed by Janssen Italia - Oncology division - in this direction is called OncoVoice: born in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, it is a virtual assistant and a digital ecosystem dedicated to cancer patients, medical specialists (especially oncologists and hematologists, but also urologists and others). only) and hospital pharmacists. Available for free as a skill to download on Amazon Alexa or on Google Home or Google Assistant for smartphones, it is capable of providing in real time the characteristics of pharmaceutical products subject to medical prescription, with information on aspects such as the method of intake, dosage and possible interactions with other drugs. Its specialty, of course, are Janssen products in the oncology field, and it is also possible to request additional documentation on the products, to receive it directly in your e-mail box.

For hospital pharmacists, OncoVoice is also integrated with the existing platform dedicated to them, Janssen Genia. "These innovations are part of a large technological and digital development project that is being carried out, thanks also to the use of artificial intelligence, with the aim of facilitating the work of hospital doctors and pharmacists, to reduce distances with patients and caregivers ”, explained Janssen Italia sales director Luca Carlo Nardi. To better support cancer patients and their families, the OncoVoice Community was also created, a Facebook page where those who are faced with cancer have a space in which to find useful information on the disease and in which to share their experience.

Online information portals

The offer to the general public of websites dedicated to the onco-haematological area is growing and strengthening, with portals that have been providing information for years to patients, caregivers and more, as well as a direct line with experts and accredited centers. Among the digital spaces branded Janssen Oncology there is Prostata sei non solo, dedicated to the deepening, information and knowledge of prostate cancer.

Another similar portal, but focused on a different area, is LM as for people with hematological cancers: the drafting of the project is made up of a team of experts who collaborate to provide useful information on leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

Medicines at home

To stay close to patients even during the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 Janssen activated Janssen at your home, a free home delivery service for the pharmaceutical company with hospital distribution in the therapeutic areas of hematology and oncology - but also hiv , pulmonary arterial hypertension and immunology. The purpose of the project in your home is to reduce access to the hospital for the withdrawal of medicines, and at the same time guarantee the safety and continuity of therapeutic-assistance for patients, in full respect of privacy.

In 2021 it was presented the service in a new guise with the Janssen version at your home 2.0: patients, doctors and hospital pharmacists can directly contact the customer care of Phse (the company for transporting and distributing medicines at controlled temperature) to join the service. The delivery of drugs is active throughout the Italian territory and currently involves patients from 15 regions, offering benefits in terms of time saved and improved quality of life. For each patient, the average benefit was quantified in 500 kilometers not traveled, equivalent to 10 hours of time gained.

Visits, monitoring and secretarial services, all remotely

To facilitate the 'use of telemedicine, Janssen has also developed an ad hoc project dedicated to Italian oncology specialists, urologists and radiotherapists. It is called JCare, and first of all it provides a video-visit service (with the possibility of exchanging documents) to ensure continuity of care for patients with prostate cancer, in need of continuous monitoring.

The project also offers doctors a series of other tools useful for the remote care of the cancer patient. For example, a toolkit for the management and home monitoring of the Covid-19 patient, through access to the daily verification system of symptoms and vital parameters, and with the possibility for the doctor to plan follow-up and perform the service via video call. In addition, JCare includes an interface dedicated to employees of the department or clinic to manage the creation of the agenda and scheduling appointments without sharing sensitive and clinical data. Basically, a secretarial account that respects privacy. And it also allows you to download reports of visits made, with a tool that allows you to download them easily and quickly.


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