Geographical data on the occurrence and spreading of invasive Aedes mosquito species in Northeast Italy.

This article reports data on the occurrence and spread of three invasive mosquito species: Aedes japonicus, Aedes koreicus, and Aedes albopictus in two regions of Northeast Italy; resulting from larval and adult collections performed during the 2011-2020 period in the framework of different projects. Routine species identification was performed using morphological characters and complemented by molecular methods when required. For the years 2019 and 2020, detailed data are reported which update previous information on municipalities and sites where these species have been detected. Geo-referenced information on the presence of invasive mosquitoes is reported and demonstrated on maps. Additional data on the nature of breeding sites and the finding of native mosquito species in the same collections are also provided.

Pervasive self-care solutions in telecardiology. Typical use cases from the EPI-MEDICS project.

In western countries, heart disease is the main cause of premature death. Most of cardiac deaths occur out of hospital. Because of a continuously growing elderly population, the number of heart attacks is steadily increasing. Symptoms are often interpreted incorrectly. Victims do not survive long enough to benefit from inhospital treatments. To reduce the time before treatment, the only useful diagnostic tool to assess the presence of a cardiac event is the electrocardiogram (ECG). Event and transtelephonic ECG recorders are used to improve decision-making but require setting up new infrastructures. The pervasive solution proposed by the European EPI-MEDICS project is an intelligent Personal ECG Monitor for the early detection of cardiac events. It includes part of the patient electronic health record (EHR), embeds a web server and decision-making techniques, generates different alarm levels and forwards alarm messages to the relevant care providers by means of new generation wireless communication. It is cost saving, involving care providers only if necessary, without requiring to set-up specific infrastructures. Healthcare becomes personalized, wearable and ubiquitous.

New paradigms in telemedicine: ambient intelligence, wearable, pervasive and personalized.

After decades of development of information systems dedicated to health professionals, there is an increasing demand for personalized and non-hospital based care. An especially critical domain is cardiology: almost two third of cardiac deaths occur out of hospital, and victims do not survive long enough to benefit from in-hospital treatments. We need to reduce the time before treatment. But symptoms are often interpreted wrongly. The only immediate diagnostic tool to assess the possibility of a cardiac event is the electrocardiogram (ECG). Event and transtelephonic ECG recorders are used to improve decision making but require setting up new infrastructures. The European EPI-MEDICS project has developed an intelligent Personal ECG Monitor (PEM) for the early detection of cardiac events. The PEM embeds advanced decision making techniques, generates different alarm levels and forwards alarm messages to the relevant care providers by means of new generation wireless communication. It is cost saving, involving care provider only if necessary and requiring no specific infrastructure. This solution is a typical example of pervasive computing and ambient intelligence that demonstrates how personalized, wearable, ubiquitous devices could improve healthcare.

Toward personal eHealth in cardiology. Results from the EPI-MEDICS telemedicine project.

Despite many attempts to improve the management of acute myocardial infarction, only small trends to shorter time intervals before treatment have been reported. The self-care solution developed by the European EPI-MEDICS project (2001-2004) is a novel, very affordable, easy-to-use, portable, and intelligent Personal ECG Monitor (PEM) for the early detection of cardiac ischemia and arrhythmia that is able to record a professional-quality, 3-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) based on leads I, II, and V2; derive the missing leads of the standard 12-lead ECG (thanks to either a generic or a patient-specific transform), compare each ECG with a reference ECG by means of advanced neural network-based decision-making methods taking into account the serial ECG measurements and the patient risk factors and clinical data; and generate different levels of alarms and forward the alarm messages with the recorded ECGs and the patient's Personal electronic Health Record (PHR) to the relevant health care providers by means of a standard Bluetooth-enabled, GSM/GPRS-compatible mobile phone. The ECG records are SCP-ECG encoded and stored with the PHR on a secure personal SD Card embedded in the PEM device. The alarm messages and the PHR are XML encoded. Major alarm messages are automatically transmitted to the nearest emergency call center. Medium or minor alarms are sent on demand to a central PEM Alarm Web Server. Health professionals are informed by a Short Message Service. The PEM embeds itself a Web server to facilitate the reviewing and/or update of the PHR during a routine visit at the office of the general physician or cardiologist. Eighty PEM prototypes have been finalized and tested for several weeks on 697 citizens/patients in different clinical and self-care situations involving end users (188 patients), general physicians (10), and cardiologists (9). The clinical evaluation indicates that the EPI-MEDICS concept may save lives and is very valuable for prehospitalization triage.