HAILED by some as the future of patient care, Telehealth is something you are going to hear a lot more about in the coming months and years.

Not to be confused with Telecare, the alarm system for elderly or vulnerable people who injure themselves at home; Telehealth is a tiny high-tech system which attaches to your telephone, monitoring your condition, and alerting a clinical expert when all is not well.

NHS North Yorkshire and York are so impressed they have just splashed out £2.3million on 2,000 units, following an eight-month trial, which they are deploying in the homes of some diabetics and people suffering from various respiratory disorders.

Health bosses hope the technology will cut down the number of chronic disorder sufferers who unnecessarily go to emergency doctors or A&E; in turn cutting down on stress and uncertainty for patients and millions in wasted services.

David Cockayne, director of strategy at North Yorkshire and York is in little doubt of the benefits of the system to patients and hospitals.

“This is an extremely exciting time for us,” he said. “All our clinicians are buying in to this. This is the whole of the NHS working together.

“Telehealth is about care and support in your own home. It’s for chronic long- term conditions such as chronic obstruction pulmonary disorder.

“These are conditions which have to monitored and where you have to take lots of readings. You have good days and you have bad days and when you have a bad day you might be concerned that you may need clinical support and that you may need to call an ambulance.”

This is where the Telehealth system comes in to play, explained Mr Cockayne.

The technology involves a system being installed in the patient’s home, which takes readings of their vital signs - such as temperature, blood pressure, blood glucose and oxygen levels - depending on their condition. These readings are then sent directly, via the telephone line, to a central monitoring centre where any abnormalities are flagged and a clinician is alerted to contact the patient.

The trust says the main purpose of the system is to identify and act on any deterioration in a patient’s condition before it gets to the point where they require admission to hospital. It can also be used to help facilitate patients being discharged home early from an acute setting.

Mr Cockayne said: “What it does is send a signal to a central call centre. If the readings are okay, it’s returned as a “green”. If the readings are outside your normal limit then the call centre will ring you and talk you through the issue. You will test again while you are on the phone and a nurse will tell the patient what to do or, if it’s serious, get a GP to your home or get you to hospital. The patient doesn’t need to leave home if they have a concern.”

One woman who is already seeing the benefits of the system is 56-year-old Pauline Waite, from York, who was diagnosed with emphysema seven years ago.

“At first I was sceptical,” she admits. “I didn’t know anything about it and questioned its reliability. But my nurse was really helpful and explained what Telehealth was and how it would help me.

“The device is so simple and easy to use and the step-by-step instructions are clear and easy to follow. At the moment it takes my blood pressure, oxygen levels and temperature once a day at 10am which only takes five minutes out of my day. If there are any abnormal readings it alerts the clinic and I get a phone call from a nurse at York Hospital the same day.

“Telehealth saved me an admission to hospital between Christmas and New Year, when there was an abnormal reading on Boxing Day and the following two days. I was really grateful because having to go to hospital would have really spoilt my Christmas.”

She said: “I was struggling to cope with my illness before Telehealth was fitted, either waking up or going to sleep feeling uneasy or ill.

“Telehealth gives me a sense of reassurance to know somebody is keeping a check on me every day. It feels like a godsend, I feel much more at ease with the different aspects of coping with my illness.

“If I don’t feel quite right I can take measurements at any time in the day and the majority of the time everything is okay.

“Before the device was fitted I would worry my blood pressure was too high and whether my body could cope with the things I had to do that day.

“Now I feel I have the confidence to get on with my daily activities without the thought constantly being at the back of my mind.”

Dr Cockayne described the Telehealth as the “future of how the NHS will operate.”

“People want services local to them - they don’t want to travel to hospital,” he said.


Telehealth at a glance

• Telehealth involves a small, portable electronic unit, roughly the size of a telephone, being installed in a patient’s home and connected to the phone line

• It is programmed to take readings such as blood pressure, blood glucose levels, oxygen levels etc on a daily basis. The readings are sent automatically to a monitoring centre

• If any abnormalities are flagged in the system, a healthcare professional is alerted and the patient is contacted

• Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic heart Failure and Diabetes are the main focus of the Telehealth programme in North Yorkshire and York

• Telehealth improves the quality of life for patients and their carers

• Telehealth can reduce the risk of patients requiring a hospital admission

• More information about the Telehealth programme in North Yorkshire and York can be found at: www.northyorkshireandyork.nhs.uk/localservices/telehealth