5. Discussion
The aim of this study was to review existing studies describing
the use of ICT in home care for communication between
patients, family members, and healthcare professionals. This
review provides an overview of characteristics of studies
describing the use of ICT applications in home care. The
results show that ICT in home care is an expanding field
of interest, with a variety of ICT tools beginning to be
evaluated significantly. Half of the included studies reviewed
represent the year between 2007 and 2009. This may reflect
the increased use of the Internet and ICT tools for care management
with involvement of patients and family members’
participation in care processes. Previous research [19] stated
that focus has emerged from being technology focused to
taking the users’, that is, the patient, family members, and
healthcare professionals, perspective into account.