Pervasive healthcare is an emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. Pervasive healthcare seeks to respond to a variety of pressures on healthcare systems, including the increased incidence of life-style related and chronic diseases, emerging consumerism in healthcare, need for empowering patients and relatives for self-care and management of their health, and need to provide seamless access for health care services, independent of time and place.

Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare.

The Pervasive Healthcare conference aims to gather together technology experts, practitioners, industry and national authorities contributing towards the development and application of human-centered pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness.

CONTRIBUTIONS

We seek novel, innovative, and exciting work in areas including but not limited to:
Technology

* Design and evaluation of patient and ambient-related sensors

* Wearable and implantable sensor integration

* Sensor networks for pervasive healthcare

* Data fusion in pervasive healthcare environments

* Physiological models for interpreting medical sensor data

* Decision support algorithms for sensor analysis

User Needs

* Usability and acceptability issues

* Social implications

* Coverage and delivery of pervasive healthcare services

* Diversity of patients and their specific requirements

* Telemedicine

Applications

* Clinical applications, validation and evaluation studies

* Pervasive healthcare applications for citizen for chronic disease management & health risk management

* Health promotion, and disease prevention

* Wearable, ambient and home based health and wellness measurement and monitoring technologies

* Continuous vs event-driven monitoring of patients in diverse environments

* Feedback

Management of Pervasive Healthcare

* Business cases and cost issues

* Electronic citizen-managed health records

* Security and privacy in pervasive healthcare

* Training of healthcare professional for pervasive healthcare

* Legal and regulatory issues in pervasive healthcare

* Insurance payments and cost aspects

* Standards and interoperability in pervasive healthcare

* Using mobile devices for healthcare information storage, update, and transmission

TYPE OF SUBMISSIONS

Pervasive Health will accept submissions in the following categories:

1 Full papers (6-8 pages submissions) - Full papers are submissions describing results and original research work not submitted or published elsewhere in one of the four main categories listed below. Full papers should properly place the work within the field, cite related work, and clearly indicate the innovative aspects of the work and its contribution to the field.

2 Posters (3-4 pages submissions) - Authors are invited to submit work in progress whose preliminary results are already interesting to Pervasive Health audience. The poster track will give Pervasive Health attendees a way to learn about ongoing research initiatives and will provide presenters with an excellent opportunity to receive invaluable direct feedback from experts.

3 Demos (2 pages submissions) - For the first time, Pervasive Health Conference proposes a demo track that will showcase the latest developments and prototypes related to the topics of interest of the conference. The expected demo submissions should describe the demo from both, the technical side and its contribution to healthcare aspects.

4 Position Papers (2 pages submissions) - Position papers are envisioned to provide insight into the lessons learnt from current (industrial, practitioners, government, etc.) pervasive healthcare practice. The position papers track is envisioned to provide the view of practitioners to the pervasive health community in order to have a more clear understanding about the real needs of healthcare operators and in this way shorten the gap between technologists and the every-day needs of practitioners.

5 Workshops (2 pages submissions)Several workshops will be run in conjunction with the conference. The purpose of these workshops is to discuss work in progress and explore opportunities for new research related to pervasive healthcare. Proposals for workshops should be submitted directly to the workshops co-chairs..

All accepted submissions will be published in IEEExplore Digital Library. :

IMPORTANT DATES

Full papers, Posters, Demos & Position Papers due: December 5, 2008
Notification of Acceptance: February 8, 2009
Camera-ready Manuscripts due: February 27, 2009
Conference Dates: April 1 - 3, 2009