Televisiting “is a path that has been activated for a pathology, multiple sclerosis. But once the main concepts have been identified, it can certainly be replicated in other neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia, especially in light of the education of new drugs that we await”. Thus Mario Zappia, professor of Neurology and director of the Neurological Clinic of the Aou Policlinico ‘G. Rodolico’ – San Marco di Catania, in his report on the event in which the results of the survey ‘State of the art and prospects for telemedicine in the management of patients with multiple sclerosis’ were presented, relating to the EcoSM project (Digital Ecosystem of assistance and monitoring of patients with multiple sclerosis), created thanks to the collaboration between the Italian Society of Neurology (Sin), the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Association (Aism) and Biogen.
Explaining the experience of the pilot project carried out in the Catania clinic, Zappia recalls that “the idea was born at the beginning of the pandemic to bring patients closer to clinical centres, but we wanted to see what the feasibility of the project was. It was a matter of understanding how the remote visit is done, whether it can replace the outpatient visit and when. We know that – specifies the neurologist – diagnosis and communication of the diagnosis must be in person. With the pilot study we have therefore validated the concept of televisit and quantified the overlapping aspects to the visit in person or not. Other aspects of no less importance concern the feasibility of telemedicine in practice, from technical-legal issues such as privacy to technological aspects, to training for access and sharing of contents by the various actors who they work around the person with multiple sclerosis. At the conclusion of this pilot project it was natural to think of an experience at a national level and the news from the Honorable Loizzo on the motion is the conclusion of a path that finds support at an institutional level”.
This first pilot phase of the EcoSM project, “which saw us involved thanks to the collaboration between Sin, Biogen Italia and AiSDeT (Italian Association of Digital Health and Telemedicine) – continues Zappia – was a useful test bed to guide the evolution of the project on a national scale and allowed us to highlight the key points on which to concentrate our work of analysis and operational reflection, to identify concrete prospects for integrating telemedicine into the management paths of patients with multiple sclerosis. The feasibility manual that arose from pilot experience – adds the specialist – describes the strategic reasons, organizational methods, technological infrastructures and costs relating to a telemedicine and ‘connected care’ project intended for people with multiple sclerosis. I hope that this work can guide telemedicine paths more widespread on a national scale, both in the field of multiple sclerosis and other highly complex chronic diseases”.
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