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29.
September
2017.
Milton Keynes Telehealth Service saves time and money

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29 September 2017

For immediate publication

 

Milton Keynes Telehealth Service saves time and money

CNWL's Milton Keynes Telehealth team is responsible for managing patients with long term conditions.

Telehealth is a user friendly piece of equipment that can improve the quality of life of patients living with a long-term health condition.

Telehealth involves a small electronic unit, roughly the size of a telephone, being installed in your home. Devices are then used to take readings such as blood pressure, oxygen levels, weight, pulse and temperature, depending on your condition.

It does this by monitoring your health on a daily basis and identifies any deterioration before it becomes critical. This can help reduce the need for hospital admission.

Telehealth can make a real difference to a patient's life by helping them maintain their independence.

Many patients already using telehealth report an improvement in their overall confidence and added peace of mind that their condition is being monitored.

Leticia Sainty who is the Lead Matron explains in detail how telehealth works: "Every morning our patients are required to do an interview at home with an easy to use device called MyMedic that is installed in their home. This device will give each patient a series of instructions to follow. The patient will be asked to take their blood pressure, pulse, oxygen and weight. We supply all the equipment they need in order to take their readings. A patient will be given a 90 minute window to complete their readings.

"All equipment is installed with Bluetooth technology, which sends the information to MyMedic. MyMedic is equipped with GPRS and sends the data to our triage nurses on a dashboard.

"Results are provided on the dashboard in a colour coded format. Red and amber indicate an action will need to be taken such as ringing the patient to check if they are OK or request to make contact with the patient. Green is stable, blue means the patient hasn't completed their readings, which requires us to find out why and grey tells us there is a problem with the delivery of the results from MyMedic to our systems.

"We can also export data from the dashboard to primary or secondary care, when necessary so that other healthcare professionals who become involved in the care have up to date information."

Leticia continued: "In telehealth you are empowering the patient to learn more about their condition and how to respond when certain symptoms appear or when their health temporarily worsens. Patients who are educated on their condition feel less anxiety and are less likely to call emergency services which reduce unnecessary hospital admissions.

"If a patient feels unwell MyMedic will prompt and advise on how to act when there are certain triggers. For example, if a COPD patient is coughing, MyMedic will try and learn more about the cough before instructing the patient on what to do. Sometimes symptoms can be managed at home whereas others will require intervention from a healthcare professional.

"The human interaction still remains. At any point a patient can speak to our triage nurses."

For more details:

Contact Senior Communications Officer Jeremy Dunning on 0203 214 5756 or email jeremy.dunning@nhs.net

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:
communications.cnwl@nhs.net