Home care: a biomedical engineering challenge

The contributions of biomedical engineering to health care delivery have focused on techniques for acquiring and processing patient data, primarily in the high technology setting of modern hospitals. The increased sophistication of hospitals is responsible in large measure for the soaring costs of health care. The current trend toward both ambulatory and home care provides new and challenging opportunities for biomedical engineering to bear on problems of great social and economic consequence in facilitating safe and effective care of the chronically ill in the security and comfort of their own homes. Techniques which are refined for use by the expanding population of both aged and handicapped individuals are also of potential value for the home care of younger patients with broader life expectancy. Projections into the future prospects for home care elicit a wide diversity of opportunities of great significance to the future of the health professions and society as a whole.