Home monitors for heart patients

PIONEERING technology which allows medics to monitor patients with chronic conditions without the need to admit them to hospital will “go live” in South Yorkshire today.

The telehealth project will be used to help 150 patients suffering with congestive heart failure (CHF) in Barnsley, whose wellbeing will be constantly monitored by specialists.

Technology firm Bosch has agreed to run the trial with NHS Barnsley, the primary care trust responsible for delivering heathcare services to 225,000 residents in the borough.

People taking part in the Barnsley pilot will be the first heart patients in Europe to test the system, which health chiefs hope will save money and stop unnecessary hospital visits.

Telehealth works by installing an electronic monitoring system in a patient’s home which allows them to enter their own observations about their health at set times during the day.

The equipment then sends the information to trained doctors and nurses who can check the data and intervene by telephone or in person if they are concerned.

Margaret Kitching, director of nursing and profession at the primary care trust, said when patients took responsibility for checking their own “vital signs” they often changed their behaviour.

She added: “People who are supported with telehealth are more likely to take control of their own health by stopping smoking, losing weight or doing more exercise.

“It also improves medical care once they access the system as nurses can assess and direct them to the right services based on the findings recorded through the system. This provides greater efficiency both in time and resources.”

The trust said evaluation of how the system works with the first 150 patients would be used to bring in a second phase of 500 patients suffering with long-term conditions like diabetes.

Local family doctors have supported the telehealth trial and said that remote monitoring meant that people were less likely to put a constant strain on community services.

Dr Pete Lane, who leads a consortium of Barnsley GP practices, said: “Within the current financial pressures in the NHS it makes absolute sense to mobilise and empower individuals.

“They are a massive, largely untapped resource. Improving their ability through telehealth to self-manage and better understand when they need to seek appropriate professional help is a real win-win opportunity for both the individual and the local health resources.

“I am very optimistic that telehealth will embed itself locally as a very valuable resource tool to enhance and complement existing services.”

Managers at NHS Barnsley said more than 60,000 people in the borough were recognised as living with chronic illnesses, meaning the potential for the technology was huge.

They added that they expected telehealth to be popular with the patients who had been selected to test it and were expecting a great deal of interest from other patients.

Brian Hughes, director of intelligence, innovation and quality at NHS Barnsley, said: “Our partnership with Bosch Healthcare represents a significant commitment to help people with the problems that living with a long-term health condition can cause.

“We are delighted by the speed at which we’ve been able to work together to ensure patients with CHF can use the new system. The project’s first phase has been delivered from concept to implementation in just 14 weeks, which is really fantastic.

“We look forward to being able to roll it out further with our eventual aim to see Barnsley as a national leader in the provision of telehealth.”

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