There is no legislation for home care provision. On the informal networks of family carers there is not much information available. It is speculated that family members take the responsibility of the elderly home care and since there is no source of financial support for these services they either provide the services themselves or engage foreign carers (uninsured, inexperienced and therefore inexpensive migrants, mostly women, who are capable of providing only the most basic services). The lack of legislation / regulations is the main barrier to the development of care provision initiatives. The general availability and suitability of ICT in Care still seems far away.
The only financial provisions for the use of applications (or equipment) in the context of home care in Greece is the Tele-alarm System that Red Cross has created to support lonely people, elderly, handicapped, or people with chronic diseases. It functions 24 hours a day and offers direct help in case of emergency. The hi-Tec equipment that the system uses, receive call signals for help, so that depending on the need of the transmitter, the family or the neighbouring environment is consecutively called; even the police, the Ambulance Service, or the Fire Service may be called if necessary. The program offers thus security to the clients, resulting to the reduction of the number of elderly admitted to Institutions. The system can be used without cost, but it covers limited areas in Athens and in Thessaloniki.
The physically distributed resources of the healthcare sector and the diverse requirements of different medical facilities and clinical departments require that specialised autonomous information systems are used to support specific needs, while they interact transparently to the user to provide support for available, affordable, and accountable clinical services. There is a vital need that such information systems go significantly beyond simple computerisation and stand-alone support by ensuring that relevant information is delivered at the right place and time, at an institutional and regional level. HYGEIAnet on Crete adheres to these principles and is currently at an advanced stage of implementation as a fully integrated health telematics network, supporting continuity of care and making medical expertise a shared resource wherever and whenever it is needed. Continuity of care is supported at all levels of the healthcare hierarchy, including pre-hospital health emergencies.
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