The Kit 2.0 project for home assistance and monitoring of patients undergoing cancer treatment was born at the Gemelli Irccs Polyclinic Foundation, at the Gemelli ART (Advanced Radiation Therapy). The initiative involves the creation of an assistance network which, by exploiting a dedicated telemedicine service, IoT (Internet of Things) and mobile applications, makes it possible to follow the patient at home and to identify the most high-risk situations, acquiring information so far not readily available but potentially useful.
The Kit 2.0 project (Kit stands for Keep in Touch, i.e. ‘let’s keep in touch’) represents an expansion of the Kit 1 project, activated in March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, with the implementation of a remote tele-consultation system using televisits which made it possible to maintain direct specialist contact with patients and family doctors during the lockdown.
Currently, the evolution of the project has taken place in the creation of an integrated patient management system, aimed at promoting continuous assistance even remotely through the creation of an IT platform.
Specifically, the Kit 2.0 system was implemented through the creation of tools for the patient in 3 different areas of intervention: the patient based WEB portal (www.gemelliart.it), the radiotherapy information portal of the Gemelli Polyclinic was completely restructured, becoming a platform dedicated to communication with the patient through the introduction of FAQs; the ChatBot service, an automatic instant messaging system to facilitate patient-hospital communication using artificial intelligence systems; the Kit app (Keep in touch), with dedicated questionnaires and image capture tools for the management of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) during and after therapy. Even from home, the patient can communicate with the radiotherapy doctor who, thanks to a personal smartwatch connected to the app, can monitor heartbeats, steps, activities, calories and receive photos to check the status of the area undergoing radiotherapy .
The project was carried out thanks to the contribution of the Reale Foundation, the corporate foundation of the Reale Group, and of the Vodafone Italia Foundation. “The use of this technology brings significant benefits for patients – says Vincenzo Valentini, director of Gemelli ART – in particular it is possible to have continuous monitoring of the patient, an optimization of communications with the reference hospital and a reduction of hyper – hospitalization of patients based on risk factors thanks to a high quality telemedicine service”.
“The data collected through the use of KIT 2.0 technology will be integrated and processed by a learning machine – continues Luca Tagliaferri, head of the Interventional Radiotherapy unit and principal investigator of the project – which through an artificial intelligence system will allow the radiotherapist to intercept any critical issues in the care path of the individual patient and above all will allow to intervene in a personalized way on the therapy of each patient”.