Zillah Moore, director at Tunstall Healthcare, discusses the need for a digital revolution and why investing in technology will ensure the delivery of essential care services to meet the needs of a post-pandemic population.
Tunstall Healthcare
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the opportunities to revolutionise how health and care is delivered, and we must look closely at this progress and consider how much further we can go.
New technologies connect people, enable integrated care provision and can empower people to manage their own health and wellbeing. The health crisis has illustrated just how crucial technology-enabled care services (TECS) are and the lessons learned during the pandemic will help us to reshape our care services in a way that supports a post-COVID world.
A global pandemic
In the last 12 months we’ve seen an increase in remote GP consultations, greater investment in telehealth, and improved hospital discharge rates of people living with chronic conditions.
The pandemic has required rapid collaborative action to ensure quality care can be delivered to those with ongoing care needs, alongside the burgeoning number of COVID patients. New teams have been built, technology has been adopted and new working cultures have been developed; forming new approaches to solve the challenges that a global pandemic has presented.
Technological initiatives which would have previously taken months to become operational have been established and mobilised in weeks. Solutions implemented during COVID-19 have benefitted a range of cohorts, including people living with mental health conditions, care home residents, and people living with long term health conditions.
The benefits of TECS
The TEC Services Association conducted an evaluation across 39 councils which identified average annual savings of £1,163 gross/£890 net per TECs user. This was typically split 70% cost avoidance and 30% cashable savings. Clearly, there are significant cost benefits to investing in such technology, both in the short and longer term.
Many people want to continue living independently and safely for as long as possible, with the reassurance that care and support will be provided when needed. Technology is widely seen as a way to address this challenge, enabling the provision of high-quality care to an ageing and post-pandemic population.
Smart solutions and assistive technology help to protect the safety of individuals, especially where people are particularly frail or at risk of falls. The use of technology can provide 24-hour reassurance and enables care service providers to deliver care safely and efficiently.
Clinicians benefit from securing improved access to patients in their homes through remote patient monitoring (RPM), providing holistic and real time patient insight. This enables preventative care as stakeholders are better placed to monitor vulnerable individuals, identifying potentially adverse events quickly, mitigating their effects and preventing the need for more complex interventions. This not only reduces the pressure on our health and social care systems, but it also reduces costs for care providers and the public.
RPM in practice
Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group invested in remote patient monitoring, combined with multi-disciplinary teams, for 34 of the area’s care homes to protect residents, staff and clinicians during and beyond the COVID crisis.
Where care staff have concerns about the health of a resident they can use a tablet to record their vital signs and help them to answer questions about their health and symptoms.
The remote monitoring approach has supported the Trust and CCG during the pandemic but will enable the provision of more proactive care over the longer term, as early intervention avoids the need for more complex care and improves outcomes, reducing pressure on primary and secondary care services.
Building on the technological progress made during COVID-19 will give more people the freedom to live where they choose and ensure much-needed medical and social care resources are channelled to the areas that need them most.
Safeguarding our services post-pandemic
An ageing population, funding challenges and a national health crisis has placed the NHS and social care systems under significant stress. The COVID-19 emergency has exacerbated this to the point where caring for vulnerable people has become increasingly challenging and difficult decisions are having to be made.
For this reason, it is critical that progress gained during the pandemic is not lost, and TECS that have been introduced and adopted are maintained to develop predictive health services that support ongoing care provision to vulnerable people, and the health and wellbeing of staff.
Technology and the digitisation of healthcare must continue to evolve so it can effectively support staff and patient care. This can only occur through a collaborative approach, and more strategic decisions with a long-term focus to shape health and care services for the future.
Collaboration between health and care services is crucial if we are to deliver a better quality of life and more independence to vulnerable people. By understanding how technology can connect social care and health, we can more effectively support people to live independently at home and in their communities into the next decade and beyond.
The future of care
The Government’s recently published white paper; ‘working together to improve health and social care for all’, sets out legislative proposals to build on the collaborations generated during the pandemic, and shape a system that's better able to serve people in a fast-changing world.
These plans to deliver a new model of care which is centralised and standardised, and places Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in every area of England, to improve population health outcomes requires a base level of digital functionality if it is to succeed. We must also exploit the accelerating development of new technology to enable new models of care, personalisation, and support.
Tunstall Healthcare is investing in the improved delivery of health and care with its Tunstall Cognitive Care model to enable the Government, and health and care providers, to facilitate these reforms through data collection from different sensors, along with text and audio entries from a service user or their caregiver. The system has been designed to build on the successes that telecare and remote health monitoring have already delivered and empower people to take control of their health and care providers to support wellbeing.
In order to safeguard our services for the future and protect the UK’s most vulnerable people, healthcare must receive greater support to truly become technologically enabled. The Government must not only support the digital infrastructure to assist providers in switching over to TECS platforms, but it should also ensure a minimum technology standard across healthcare services.
Providers must work together to develop innovative models of care which support more efficient care delivery and long-term efficiencies, and it’s crucial that we see greater collaboration between the NHS and third sectors to enable further independent living for vulnerable people and the transformational benefits of digital technology.
