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14 November 2011:Launching today, an innovative home monitoring service for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and chronic heart failure could offer improved patient care and increase efficiency in the NHS.

The new service by Telehealth Solutions offers a unique system which can be customised to the individual patient and deploys a specialist nurse triage service, working in partnership with other clinicians, to support more informed clinical decision making, while empowering the patient to take greater control of their care.

As well as improving the standard of patient care, the new system will allow for more regular monitoring and appropriate intervention to better manage demand on the healthcare system whilst freeing up clinician time from administrative duties to caring for patients. GPs and nurses will be able to better prioritise home visits and surgery appointments, and early interventions will reduce the number of emergency hospital admissions.

There are 900,000 COPD sufferers in the UK and over 10,000 are estimated to have more than two hospitalisations a year with the cost of a single hospitalisation costing the NHS almost £2,500. It is estimated that this new service could therefore save the UK over £70 million in two years from the cost of COPD patient care alone.¹

This ‘end-to-end managed’ telehealth service is more than just smart technology as it directly involves patients in their treatment while ensuring that clinicians remain in control of managing the entire care pathway. The system allows clinicians to modify and personalise the data collected for an individual patient and Clinical Nurses Specialists are able to access and remotely analyse individual patient information, such as pulse, blood pressure and weight; detecting warning signs and making appropriate early interventions.

The UK launch of this home monitoring device comes at a vital time for the NHS. The Department of Health is due to publish the outcome of the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) programme. Its purpose is to find out how a service of this nature can help people manage their own health while maintaining their independence. The project covers 6,000 patients over three sites in England.

John Dyson, Chief Executive of Telehealth Solutions, said, “This is not just another piece of fancy kit like those that have gone before, which have only overloaded the NHS with data. The Telehealth Solutions’ ‘end-to-end service’ is a tailored, comprehensive patient care model, ensuring full collaboration and dialogue between patient and healthcare professional from the outset. It is a significant step forward for patients with these long-term conditions as they can now take more control over their treatment plan and actively participate in consultations in collaboration with clinicians.”