Artificial intelligence and digital medicine for integrated home care services in Italy: Opportunities and limits

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are essential to summarise evidence relating to efficacy and safety of healthcare interventions accurately and reliably. The clarity and transparency of these reports, however, are not optimal. Poor reporting of systematic reviews diminishes their value to clinicians, policy makers, and other users. Since the development of the QUOROM (quality of reporting of meta-analysis) statement—a reporting guideline published in 1999—there have been several conceptual, methodological, and practical advances regarding the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Also, reviews of published systematic reviews have found that key information about these studies is often poorly reported. Realising these issues, an international group that included experienced authors and methodologists developed PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) as an evolution of the original QUOROM guideline for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of evaluations of health care interventions. The PRISMA statement consists of a 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram. The checklist includes items deemed essential for transparent reporting of a systematic review. In this explanation and elaboration document, we explain the meaning and rationale for each checklist item. For each item, we include an example of good reporting and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature. The PRISMA statement, this document, and the associated website (www.prisma-statement.org/) should be helpful resources to improve reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Background Telemedicine applications have been increasing due to the development of new computer science technologies and of more advanced telemedical devices. Various types of telerehabilitation treatments and their relative intensities and duration have been reported. Objective The objective of this review is to provide a detailed overview of the rehabilitation techniques for remote sites (telerehabilitation) and their fields of application, with analysis of the benefits and the drawbacks related to use. We discuss future applications of telerehabilitation techniques with an emphasis on the development of high-tech devices, and on which new tools and applications can be used in the future. Methods We retrieved relevant information and data on telerehabilitation from books, articles and online materials using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) “telerehabilitation,” “telemedicine,” and “rehabilitation,” as well as “disabling pathologies.” Results Telerehabilitation can be considered as a branch of telemedicine. Although this field is considerably new, its use has rapidly grown in developed countries. In general, telerehabilitation reduces the costs of both health care providers and patients compared with traditional inpatient or person-to-person rehabilitation. Furthermore, patients who live in remote places, where traditional rehabilitation services may not be easily accessible, can benefit from this technology. However, certain disadvantages of telerehabilitation, including skepticism on the part of patients due to remote interaction with their physicians or rehabilitators, should not be underestimated. Conclusions This review evaluated different application fields of telerehabilitation, highlighting its benefits and drawbacks. This study may be a starting point for improving approaches and devices for telerehabilitation. In this context, patients’ feedback may be important to adapt rehabilitation techniques and approaches to their needs, which would subsequently help to improve the quality of rehabilitation in the future. The need for proper training and education of people involved in this new and emerging form of intervention for more effective treatment can’t be overstated.

Background: Telemedicine involves medical practice and information and communications technology. It has been proven to be very effective for remote health care, especially in areas with poor provision of health facilities. However, implementation of these technologies is often hampered by various issues. Among these, ethical and legal concerns are some of the more complex and diverse ones. In this study, an analysis of scientific literature was carried out to identify the ethical and legal challenges of telemedicine. Materials and Methods: English literature, published between 2010 and 2019, was searched on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science by using keywords, including “Telemedicine,” “Ethics,” “Malpractice,” “Telemedicine and Ethics,” “Telemedicine and Informed consent,” and “telemedicine and malpractice.” Different types of articles were analyzed, including research articles, review articles, and qualitative studies. The abstracts were evaluated according to the selection criteria, using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale criteria, and the final analysis led to the inclusion of 22 articles. Discussion: From the aforementioned sample, we analyzed elements that may be indicative of the efficacy of telemedicine in an adequate time frame. Ethical aspects such as informed consent, protection data, confidentiality, physician's malpractice, and liability and telemedicine regulations were considered. Conclusions: Our objective was to highlight the current status and identify what still needs to be implemented in telemedicine with respect to ethical and legal standards. Gaps emerged between current legislation, legislators, service providers, different medical services, and most importantly patient interaction with his/her data and the use of that data.