Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Introduction Nationwide, sustainable implementation of telemonitoring is a challenging task in healthcare. The purpose of this study protocol is to describe the methodology and evaluation of a collaborative eHealth program. The Program is named ‘Citrien’, fostered by ZonMw, the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development and carried out under the governance of the NFU, the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (umc’s). The program is a nationwide initiative considering implementation and upscaling of eHealth, focusing on telemonitoring. The concepts chosen are 1) telemonitoring solutions in the domain of cardiology , 2) telemonitoring solutions aiming to provide care-at-a distance in obstetrics and 3) telemonitoring solutions for monitoring patients using wearables in clinical departments. Methods and analysis Primary outcome is the degree of normalization in which health care providers consider telemonitoring to be a part of their routine practice. The secondary outcome is the uptake of telemonitoring in Dutch umc’s. A before-and-after field study design is chosen to assess outcome. The framework for Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread and Sustainability (NASS) was used for a structured analysis. The effectiveness of Citrien is expressed in the degree of uptake and normalization of the use of telemonitoring in the 8 umc’s. Normalization of telemonitoring is measured with Normalization MeAsurement Development tool (NoMAD). Non-parametric tests will be used to assess outcome. Discussion: This study will yield unique evidence and insights about the use of telemonitoring in Dutch umc’s and hence provide better understanding on how to scale-up telemonitoring across settings.