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8 Mar 2011
South Birmingham PCT
A new web-based, rapidly scalable telehealth solution using medically enabled mobile phones has been developed at Heartlands Hospital. The cost effective technology, designed by clinicians uses individual care plans, uploaded onto a specially adapted mobile phone. The system supports better self management through education and detects early changes that can be acted upon to prevent emergency admissions. The mobile phone has a simple touch screen interface, multiple language options and easy to follow voice instruction to make it accessible to all ages and ethnicities.
South Birmingham PCT has successfully deployed this mobile phone based telehealth solution, Safe Mobile Care™ as part of its drive to provide care closer to home and reduce unnecessary and costly hospital admissions. The Trust successfully piloted the solution across 50 people suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and in the first 6 months has seen a staggering 75% reduction in unplanned hospital admissions and a resultant saving of c£260,000 per annum across this patient group.
Safe Mobile Care™, developed by Safe Patient Systems Limited, is an ‘end to end’ mobile telehealth system that enables clinicians to prescribe an individual monitoring profile from a web based application for a patient that is then automatically uploaded to the device. The mobile phone prompts patients to complete a clinically validated quality of life questionnaire that took less than a minute each day. If this indicated that their condition may be worsening, then an automatic alert was generated and sent to the appropriate monitoring healthcare professional to make contact with the patient and advise what course of action to take.
The project was commissioned and led by Carol Bhalla, Commissioning Manager, South Birmingham PCT (SBPCT), who wanted a way to improve healthcare outcomes and reduce dependency upon secondary care. It was also important to find a solution that could support a more efficient, integrated community care model for people suffering from Long Term Conditions, so they could live as independently as possible. The specific objectives of the pilot were improve quality of care, productivity and increased prevention of unnecessary hospital, outpatient, GP and nurse visits, whilst enhancing patient confidence and self esteem, as well as, reducing the levels of depression, stress and anxiety caused by managing COPD.
Carol said: “The team at Safe Patient Systems invested time to understand our requirements and ensure their solution was customised to best support the new care pathways defined by the clinical team. The system’s ability to be easily and quickly adapted was one of the key attractions to selecting Safe Mobile Care.”
The average age of people in the pilot was 76, with the oldest being 91 and despite their age profile, they found the device very easy to use. Its familiar mobile phone format had no stigma attached to it and its simple touch screen interface was extremely easy to use, with the added benefit of being easily located anywhere in the house. Its mobility also meant patients could be monitored even if they went away to stay with friends or family.
From a healthcare professional perspective, the team found the system easy to use and extremely valuable in directing them to make contact with those patients who needed their help at the right time. The secure web based system allowed community matrons to access patient information and log the key interventions they made, thereby building a robust patient record and providing quantifiable evidence of the positive actions the team made.
Hillary Kemp - Community Matron said “the system was incredibly easy for staff and the patient to use. It has really provided improved patient confidence in managing their condition. It only took us about thirty minutes to get a new patient up and running on the system in the comfort of their own home”.
The solution has demonstrated the potential for much improved productivity. The fact that on average only six alerts per day were received, taking on average ten minutes per alert to provide a positive intervention across the 50 patients, has meant that the team can look to broaden the number of patients they can support in the future.
The solution has enabled these patients to be far more confident in managing their condition and prevented over 75% of unplanned admissions1. With over 6,000 people registered for COPD in SBPCT driving over 2000 unplanned admissions per year, the solution can provide substantial improvements in people’s quality of life and provides the basis for creating new and more efficient care pathways to deliver multimillion pound savings for the Trust.
Mark Doorbar, CEO of Safe Patient Systems Limited said: “Providing a low cost, scalable, easy to use and deploy solution to people suffering from Long Term Conditions has been a key objective for us. We believe that Safe Mobile Care can demonstrably improve the quality of patient care whilst substantially reducing the cost burden on the healthcare system. This is a fabulous enabling technology that provides the NHS an opportunity to deliver more for less.”
Ends
Sources: 1 Independent research and analysis conducted by Mosaique
Case Study: June Birch – COPD patient
June was first diagnosed with COPD in 2005. In the full year prior to being given the Safe Mobile Care monitoring device, she had been admitted to hospital more than 2 times due to an exacerbation of her condition. In September 2009 June started using the Safe Mobile Care solution which enabled her to better manage her condition with the help of the Community Matrons who received alerts from the monitoring device if her condition was a risk of exacerbating.
She said; “The mobile phone device has helped me feel much more confident about my condition. When I was worse than normal they’d (the community nurse) would give me a ring which was nice and tell me what to do.”
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