Get a cuppa’ and an aspirin, shut the door, turn off your phone and other distractions and get stuck into reading the free, 28-page Remote Care PLC: Developing the capacity of the remote care industry to supply Britain’s future needs report. Despite the pedestrian title it is a cracker and, despite the UK focus, it has messages for anyone in the ‘remote care’ (telecare and telehealth) industry, wherever their market is.
Given the lack of definitions and data in this arena it is as solid as any such market research could be and pulls no punches, not to mention delivering many smack-on-the-forehead moments. Hence the need for aspirin!
And if you are thinking of making a killing on the back of the 3millionlives (3ML) campaign, you may need something stronger than aspirin…the report suggests that the potential market for remote care may indeed reach 3 million – but not until 2050!
The report was authored by James Barlow, Richard Curry, Theti Chrysanthaki, Jane Hendy and Nael Taher and published by the Health and Care Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC) – a collaboration between research centres at Imperial College London and the universities of Loughborough, Reading and Salford – and was funded partly through the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) programme and the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council’s IMRC programme. Download it from the HaCIRIC website or directly, here (PFD).
A very interesting read Steve,
I am very disappointed however that this focuses on Telehealth and Telecare as separate areas and does not even mention the use of video as part of a solution for integration and shared working. To report on the two in this isolated way means that the silos will just continue.
Interesting to hear the suppliers’ comments and their reluctance on interoperability :-)
Alastair – I must admit that I hadn’t noticed the lack of references to videoconferencing. As I was reading it and bearing in mind that I would be writing about it, I kept thinking “Good point, I must quote that!” But then I realised that there were so many that I’d end up quoting it all!
The supplier’s comments are indeed interesting.
I wonder which other parts got readers excited?
I’m afraid that I didn’t find this report exciting at all. All the opinion seems to be on Telecare Aware already in some form or other – so all the academics have to do is collate it!
What is really disappointing is that there has been no attempt to separate the views of the equipment providers from those of the service providers – no wonder there is no mention of 3rd generation telecare systems that use video interaction and which support the different models of telecare that are emerging and which condemn the whole concept of telehealth (as in remote vital signs monitoring) to history.
Assisted living services must surely include remote care and support, but it will have to be a single integrated service that includes everything from basic aids, adaptations, alarms and all types of monitoring through to remote interventions and interactions. Maybe no single provider has all the elements yet, but the big players will surely buy their way to complete solutions. That’s when the market will really open up.
I tend to agree with Jo that there is little in there that has not already been discussed here.
The report is very telehealthcentric with telecare getting occasional mentions.
Whilst it is all well and good maintaining anonymity of interviewees … I think we are all aware that there are polarised views and perhaps the report should list their interviewees/organisations without attributing specific comments to them? It is difficult to evaluate whether the interviewee responses could have skewed the opinions the research has then been based on.
It would have been an opportunity to explore the issues in both supply and demand around the over reliance on the ‘box and button’ but other than a passing reference to the age of this technology it is then ignored.
Finally and, for me, most disappointing is the fact that a key partner in all of this is not included – whether telecare, telehealth, telemedicine, integrated or stand alone the people who have to be convinced to be partners are the public … the people who have the most to lose by the supply-demand model getting it wrong over and over again. If anyone has doubts about this look again at those articles in the popular press and scroll down to the pages of comments from uninformed members of the British public who are clearly upset and frightened by the constant talk of technology being the answer to our care crisis … it is their care and support needs we are addressing and it is their tax pound that is paying for it … we need them to be partners in the journey.