An Irish technology company better known for its silicon design and TV and telecoms technologies has won a major contract to provide telehealth design and consultancy services on Europe’s largest chronic disease programme.
S3 Group has been selected by Telbios, which provides technical services to Buongiorno CReg – Europe’s largest chronic disease service – to enable the launch of its services in four health trust areas of Milano, Como, Bergamo and Milano-2.
At a regional level, almost 400 family physicians will provide care to about 40,000 chronic disease patients.
These include patients with heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension and Ischemic heart disease in primary care settings or in their own homes.
Services will range from care co-ordination services and patient education to teleconsultation and telehealth.
Telehealth in action
The service centre will also take responsibility for the monitoring of patients whose vital sign measurements have been captured remotely in patients’ homes or GP offices and for provision of patient education and medication-management services.
“The objective of the Buongiorno CReG Service is to create motivated and informed patients who can be treated in primary care settings or their own homes,” said Dr Malachy Rice, global sales and business development manager, S3 Group.
“Through our partnership with Telbios, we are helping to design a service that ensures early intervention in the progression of a chronic disease and most importantly to enable the patients to take more control of their disease symptoms through education and vital-sign readings,” Rice said.
South Dublin-based S3 Group was founded in 1986 primarily to focus on electronics and silicon design for semiconductors in multimedia communications systems and has since evolved to provide e-health and TV technology solutions.
Dutch electronics giant Philips is a shareholder and Dublin venture capital firm ACT Venture Capital has invested US$13m in the company. S3 Group employs more than 200 people.