Open Access

Das Projekt TeleCareHub ist ein Kompetenz-Netzwerk für Telepflege und Telesupport in Österreich. Das Netzwerk besteht aus Partnerorganisationen aus Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Pflege- und Gesundheitspraxis aus Tirol, Kärnten, Salzburg und Vorarlberg. Es will Be-treuungspersonen bei der Pflege von zu Hause lebenden Menschen mit Demenz durch digi-tale Angebote unterstützen. Die Nutzerintegration ist ein zentrales Element von Tele-CareHub und zieht sich durch alle Arbeitsphasen – der Serviceauswahl, -implementierung und -evaluation. Acht Telecare-Services wurden identifiziert, die das Potenzial haben, die Pflege und Betreuung im ambulanten Bereich zu entlasten: (1) Wissen kompakt, (2) Lern- und Schulungsangebote basierend auf WHO iSupport, (3) Chat-Beratung, (4) Video-Beratung, (5) begleitete Online-Selbsthilfegruppe, (6) Belastungs-Check, (7) sensorgestützte Alltags-Analyse sowie (8) ein Verzeichnis über Telecare-Services. Die Services wurden und werden iterativ im Rahmen von Co-Creation-Workshops mit Nutzergruppen weiterentwi-ckelt, adaptiert, erprobt und getestet. Ziel ist eine Integration und Verzahnung der Services im TeleCareHub Portal.

Age is heterogeneous and digital skills vary. Nevertheless, it is still evident that the usability of digital technologies is less pronounced among older people compared to younger people and that older people in particular are affected by the digital gap (e.g. Boot 2023, Neves, Mead 2020, McDonough 2016). Digital solutions continue to pose challenges for older people in particular. The digital gap can be closed by improving human-technology interaction. It is not only important to make technologies more user-friendly, but also to strengthen the human factor and its skills in dealing with technologies. The postulated thesis is that both are needed to promote a self-determined, safe, accepted and therefore effective use of digital technologies and to achieve a good user experience. On the one hand, the ability to use technologies competently can help to prevent emergency situations, for example by controlling smart home technologies for shading, ventilation and drinking reminders on hot days. On the other hand, technologies can help to recognize emergency situations and initiate automated actions. However, automatically initiated actions are not sufficient for all emergency situations. Human actions and decisions are needed, which requires speed of action in dealing with digital tools in catastrophic and stressful situations.

Background: Coping with the rapid growing complexity in contemporary software architecture, tracing has become an increasingly critical practice and been adopted widely by software engineers. By adopting tracing tools, practitioners are able to monitor, debug, and optimize distributed software architectures easily. However, with excessive number of valid candidates, researchers and practitioners have a hard time finding and selecting the suitable tracing tools by systematically considering their features and advantages. Objective: To such a purpose, this paper aims to provide an overview of popular Open tracing tools via comparison. Methods: Herein, we first identified 30 tools in an objective, systematic, and reproducible manner adopting the Systematic Multivocal Literature Review protocol. Then, we characterized each tool looking at the 1) measured features, 2) popularity both in peer-reviewed literature and online media, and 3) benefits and issues. We used topic modeling and sentiment analysis to extract and summarize the benefits and issues. Specially, we adopted ChatGPT to support the topic interpretation. Results: As a result, this paper presents a systematic comparison amongst the selected tracing tools in terms of their features, popularity, benefits and issues. Conclusion: The result mainly shows that each tracing tool provides a unique combination of features with also different pros and cons. The contribution of this paper is to provide the practitioners better understanding of the tracing tools facilitating their adoption.

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death worldwide. Although knowledge regarding diagnosing and treating cardiovascular disease has increased dramatically, secondary prevention remains insufficiently implemented due to failure among affected individuals to adhere to guideline recommendations. This has continued to lead to high morbidity and mortality rates. Involving patients in their healthcare and facilitating their active roles in their chronic disease management is an opportunity to meet the needs of the increasing number of cardio-vascular patients. However, simple recall of advice regarding a more preventive lifestyle does not affect sustainable behavioral lifestyle changes. We investigate the effect of plaque visualization combined with low-threshold daily lifestyle tasks using the smartphone app PreventiPlaque to evaluate change in cardiovascular risk profile. Methods: and study design: This randomized, controlled clinical trial includes 240 participants with ultrasound evidence of atherosclerotic plaque in one or both carotid arteries, defined as focal thickening of the vessel wall measuring 50% more than the regular vessel wall. A criterion for participation is access to a smartphone suitable for app usage. The participants are randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group. While both groups receive the standard of care, the intervention group has additional access to the PreventiPlaque app during the 12-month follow-up. The app includes daily tasks that promote a healthier lifestyle in the areas of smoking cessation, medication adherence, physical activity, and diet. The impact of plaque visualization and app use on the change in cardiovascular risk profile is assessed by SCORE2. Feasibility and effectiveness of the PreventiPlaque app are evaluated using standardized and validated measures for patient feedback.