Contract Number	QLRT-2001-01637
Project Acronym:	ISLANDS
Project Full Title:	Integrated System for Long distance psychiatric Assistance and Non-conventional Distributed health Services
Project time expected:	January 2003 - December 2005
Hyperlink to the Europa server:	http://europa.eu.int
EC Research programme link:	http://www.cordis.lu/life/

ISLANDS is a European co-funded research project of the thematic area "Quality of life". ISLANDS aims to develop services in order to provide modular, non-conventional, remote psychiatric and psychotherapeutic assistance for remote areas. By these means quality of life of the key actors, quality of mental health care and the economic strength of the region should improve and overweight the costs of implementation and service support.

The goal of ISLANDS project is approached by:

• Identifying the specific needs of patients, their informal carers and professionals in remote areas.

• Defining nine different remote service categories, according to the services (three services, namely diagnosis, counselling and therapy, different for each group category, ie. Patients, informal carers and professionals), the different user groups' needs and epidemiological findings.

• Recognising the most acute risks and contemplating compensation strategies.