Swindon takes telehealth to mainstream

Swindon PCT has mainstreamed its telehealth service, the fourth to do so in the last six months.

The PCT is to move from 11 monitors to 50 after a successful pilot project showed that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who used telehealth monitoring had one fewer hospital admissions over six months.

Jan Tretheway, deputy director of service development and acute services, said: “Patients [using telehealth monitoring] are being admitted to hospital less often, require less input from community nurses and therapy teams and have more freedom to enjoy life.”

Matt Marshall, director of health for Tunstall, which supplied the monitors in Swindon, said the move to mainstream was becoming increasingly popular among early adopters of the technology.

Nottingham City earlier this year moved from 20 to 300 monitors with the aim of reaching 800 pateints. Walsall PCT now has over 100 monitors and Birmingham North and East PCT has introduced telehealth to its OwnHealth telephone support service.

Mr Marshall said: “We are working with 50 early adopters who have now tested the technology and, more importantly, the care pathways around it and are now deciding to do more.”

Referring to the large-scale pilot projects funded by the Department of Health earlier this year, he added: “Everybody is eagerly awaiting the results of the Whole System Demonstrators but there is a groundswell of opinion that they are going to be positive so why wait until 2010?”