Telemedicine slashes hospitals stays

A telemedicine project has halved the time patients spend in hospital, by allowing doctors to monitor their condition remotely.

Carlisle Housing Association and Carlisle and District Primary Care Trust wanted to reduce the length of hospital stays for patients and also to increase the independence of patients by giving them more information about their condition.

Using the system to manage chronic respiratory diseases... medics in Carlisle have managed to reduce hospital stays for some patients from 10 days to 5.5 days.

The project involves giving a 'telemedicine monitor' to patients which allows them to measure their own temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, ECG and blood pressure. These results are sent via a phone line to a secure server where they are saved as an electronic patient record, which can then be accessed by doctors or nurses.

Using the system to manage chronic respiratory diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), medics in Carlisle have managed to reduce hospital stays for some patients from 10 days to 5.5 days.

COPD currently costs the NHS around £818m per year.

Having the equipment - supplied by Tunstall - helps patients feel less anxious about their condition because if readings on the monitor deviate from levels set by the clinician an alert is sent out to the housing association.

Tunstall said the technology is very easy for patients to use and is used by people from 35- to 82-years-old, with a 94 per cent rate of acceptance by patients.

Kay Douglas, senior clinical manager on the Intermediate Care Team said the service is allowing patients to live independently but also allows doctors to adopt a more preventative approach which has helped to reduced hospital readmissions.

She told silicon.com: "The scheme has met and far exceeded the original targets of supporting 70 cases of COPD. To date there have been 210 cases, saving almost 1,000 bed days."