Effects of consumer-centered u-Health service for the knowledge, skill and attitude of the patients with Chronic ObstructivePulmonary Disease

Abstract

Information and telecommunication technologies are called to play a major role in the changes that healthcare systems face to cope with chronic diseases. A growing trend in many countries is to offer patients Telemedicine, Telecare, e- Health and access to their health information through the use of electronic personal health record (PHRs). u-Health, e-Health, and telemedicine shares the similar notion of healthcare service, and could be used interchangeably as those are the coined terminologies for the similar services. u-Health is the acronym of ubiquitous healthcare and the term is currently used very widely and has substituted the terms Telemedicine, Telecare, and e-Health in Korea. It is equivalent to those previously used terms, however, has more comprehensive meaning to encompass concepts such as the ability of healthcare service using information and telecommunication technologies in 5 domains such as space, time, provider, consumer and type of service.