TELEHEALTH
Telehealth monitoring offers solutions to ease demand on acute services and the worries of patients, says Sue Thackray of NHS Sheffield.
T
here are many ideas being put for- ward to reduce costs in the NHS.
One area where there is a large amount of waste is needless admissions to Accident and Emergency, when a patient with a chronic illness will become worried about their condition and checks themself into hospital to put their mind at rest.
Telehealth monitoring offers a way to stop this by giving patients control over their condition, allowing them to monitor it daily in the knowledge that if anything is seriously wrong with them, a clinician will be assessing those results on a daily basis and will be on hand to give assistance as soon as it is needed.
One trust that has shown particular prom- ise in developing telehealth methods is NHS Sheffield, which was given the op- portunity to pilot a number of telehealth monitors.
The PCT’s deputy head of development nursing, Sue Thackray, explained: “We de- cided to pilot the telehealth monitors with a specialist nursing team, where it was re- ceived positively.
“The trust was going through a restructur- ing process at the time of the initial trial so there were fears among some staff the new telehealth technology would be used as a way of reducing staff headcount. This meant we had some contentious issues to deal with, as well as rolling out the pro- gramme, but we got past them.”
Some practitioners expected to encounter reservations and resistance to using this kind of technology from older patients, and some did have to be convinced as to the value of the job it could do.
According to Thackray, however, the ma- jority of patients involved in the tests were surprisingly open-minded about using the technology.
She said: “Even though many of our staff had understandable reservations about the willingness of their patients to use technol- ogy in their homes, the patients completely shocked us. They were really willing to take part and I think that because the technol- ogy was fairly straightforward to operate, it was easier to get the patients involved.”
64 | national health executive Mar/Apr 11
As part of the pilot, patients received guid- ance from the staff on how to operate the equipment, which would then take various measurements such as blood pressure and temperature, weight and pulse oximetry, with the results then being fed back to a central system operated by the team.
Thackray continued: “The team would set up the patient’s equipment and then the monitor would be timed to go off at a cer- tain time everyday to let the patient know that it was time for them to take their mea- surements. All the patients had to do then was sit down next to the monitor and con- nect themselves up to the equipment and follow a few easy instructions.”
The team also found that patients felt comfortable with the equipment because it resembled the equipment which they had seen being used in hospital before and because it wasn’t too intrusive in their homes.
“Apart from things like scales, the equip- ment itself was little bigger than a standard
telephone,” Thackray said. “Interestingly, patients have told us that even though the equipment was operated remotely, they still felt reassured by it.”
As with any new technology, there will al- ways be some staff reservations. But the team were able to work through them, de- spite events outside of their control mak- ing the situation harder.
Ultimately, the trials at NHS Sheffield were so successful that they have even won awards for innovation after reducing hospital admissions by around 50% in the pilot group. As a result of this experience Thackray stated that “telehealth is gain- ing ground in the choice to support and deliver health care in the community for patient with a long term condition”.
She added: “Telehealth is expected to play a bigger role in the future of health care delivery in the UK.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.sheffield.nhs.uk
TELEHEALTH SOLUTIONS
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