Questmark/Simplicity Conferencing Services

November 26, 2012 | by

Questmark has been supplying videoconferencing to the NHS since 1999.

Our first orders were for administrative uses; the NHS is a big, diverse organisation and the traditional cost saving use of VC was evident. We delivered many meeting room systems for different areas of the NHS and, as we do with all of our clients, we worked with them to ensure they were well used and gave the client a return on their investment. In 2001 we started to bid for work that was coming out from the Cancer Networks to supply video to run cancer multidisciplinary teams (MDTs); the effective use of this application would speed up decision making at key times in defining and implementing care programmes for patients at various stages of their journey through this. We won a few of the bids and delivered video networks suitable for running MDTs by sharing people and clinical information is a suitable way. Sadly, many Cancer Networks bought from box shifters, i.e. companies that were not dedicated to this application and could provide no support in getting it working and keeping it working.

Thankfully, our results were different; we delivered measurable benefit and we still run a number of networks including the Pan Birmingham Network, North Lincs, the Royal Marsden, NHS Grampian and most of Northern Ireland where video is used as a matter of course to speed up the process and save clinician time. Medical education is also a great use for VC. We support a number of NHS trusts where the use of video is now deemed to be ‘mission critical’.

We started to work in a number of other areas where we sponsored the use of videoconferencing to pilot and assess the value of this application in other clinical disciplines and have had some notable successes.

These include teleneurology which we developed with Victor Patterson; paediatric cardiology, pre natal and neo-natal care which was piloted at th e company’s expense for five years in Northern Ireland with Frank Casey and the team at the Clark Clinic in Belfast; and cystic fibrosis which we piloted in Yorkshire and the East Midlands, again on a sponsored basis. The work in all of these included a degree of care in the home and in the community. In the Clark Clinic Questmark won a VC industry award for the success of the homecare project with the Clark Clinic.

We are a small company, we employ only 24 people, yet we recognise that to help the NHS benefit from this application we need to engage in a way that identifies where it can be used, then prove that it does in fact work and deliver benefit measured in both cost and clinical terms, and then we try to win the business to deliver the service.

It is a tough environment and it requires a big commitment on our part but we are passionate about the work we do and the benefits we have delivered. In every case where we have supplied the use of VC in clinical applications we endevour to support the work to the point that it is successful. A set of case studies is available on request.

 

Contact: Sam McMaster

Phone: +44 115 983 7750

www.questmark.co.uk

www.simplicityconferencing.com

“WSD…the [cost effectiveness] evidence there is not compelling enough” (UK)

November 4, 2012 | by | 4 Comments

Thanks to Government Computing we have two reports from the Health Service Journal 2012 Telehealth Conference 30-31st October:

Our headline quote is taken from the former, which flags up current thinking from speakers from the Department of Health and academia. The second focuses on the variability of wireless broadband coverage in the UK and has a memorable quote from Hazel Price, assistive technology project manager at Kent County Council, “In Kent we have more dead spots than a collection of cemeteries.”

Telehealth Soapbox: Do something great!

October 29, 2012 | by

Roy Lilley, the UK media’s highest-profile commentator on the NHS, telehealth supporter and previously chair (twice) of the TSA conference, writes a several-times-a-week newsletter commenting on events and developments in the UK that affect the NHS. It is required reading for anyone, including private sector suppliers, who need to understand what is happening in the NHS. (Sign up here) His newsletter article today, although not about telehealth, touched a particular nerve because the ‘i’ word he excoriates in the NHS context is frequently bandied about in the telehealth context. The article is reproduced here, with permission, and our thanks.

It’s annoying. Everywhere I turn it’s there; inappropriate, the wrong context and unsuitable. It’s stuck to my shoe. I can’t scrape it off. Over the last two weeks wherever I’ve been, PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation misused it and misrepresented its intent… (more…)

Is ‘telemedicine’ just ‘healthcare’ yet?

October 23, 2012 | by

In English, there is a well-recognised pattern in the development of some terminologies. Beginning with the ‘old’ technology, a new descriptive element is added when ‘new’ technology comes along. In time, the new terminology is shortened – often just going back to the original. Take, for example: carriage > horseless carriage > motor carriage > car. Or, a more recent one that is still in a state of flux: telephone > phone > mobile(cell)phone > smartphone > phone. Is this happening yet with terms like ‘telemedicine’, ‘telehealth’, mhealth, etc? Some people like to think so, as in this blog post Redefining telemedicine as a routine clinical practice. However, as much as enthusiasts of the technology like to anticipate such changes and, in doing so, to ‘help them along’ (it has its origins in magic, perhaps) the weight of linguistic history indicates that such changes only happen when there is a consensus in the general population that the once-new technology is now the norm. Heads-up thanks to Bob Pyke.

Telecare Soapbox: Who can purchasers trust? (UK)

October 18, 2012 | by | 16 Comments

Editor Steve Hards frets about a dilemma for telehealth and telecare service purchasers.

Imagine that you are ‘a commissioner’ in a position to influence plans for local NHS or council spending, or you could be in a position of influence within an NHS trust, or a council.

You are acutely aware of past, current and impending funding pressures. Positive messages about telehealth and telecare technologies and their potential to facilitate changes in the way services are provided – and possibly to ease some of those funding pressures – have somehow penetrated your noisy environment.

You are reasonably convinced that services locally should ‘do something’ about it. You start convincing others. You build enough momentum to get to the point of someone drawing up a commissioning specification.

What do you put in it? (more…)

Telecare Soapbox: Let’s deal with the inequalities of the Framework Agreement (UK)

October 7, 2012 | by | 1 Comment

Regular Telecare Aware readers will know our long-standing general concern about the market-distorting effect of the UK Government’s Telecare, Telehealth and Telecoaching Framework Agreement for procuring such services. John Guyatt, Director of Solutions4Health spells out what that means from the perspective of a relatively new company in the field.

I was recently preparing a bid for a telehealth service being commissioned in the next few months, when I realised that the exercise only allowed bids from companies already in the Government’s framework agreement.

We’ve been active with products in the telehealth business for the past 18 months, but we are excluded because we weren’t providing telehealth solutions when this framework agreement was first introduced about three years ago.

That’s several generations in the technology world and therefore raises a number of issues… (more…)

Best use of telehealth and telecare (UK)

October 7, 2012 | by

Illustrating the point that even in the UK the terms telehealth and telecare are used in a variety of ways, the four EHealth Insider Awards 2012 finalists in the ‘Best use of telehealth and telecare’ category included three which were loosely ‘telecoaching’ (as defined by the National Framework Agreement) and only one which we would rate as telecare. Happily, it was the winner: NHS Lothian and East Lothian Council – telecare in care homes to reduce falls. Best use of telehealth and telecare finalists. Awards results.

New word on the block: Plesiocare

September 25, 2012 | by | 2 Comments

Picked up in a comment by Kevin Doughty, the newly coined terminology ‘plesiocare’. Do you know what it means? Do you want to know what it means? It’s ‘near-care’ as opposed to ‘telecare’. That is, technology which gives feedback straight to the carer, rather than being mediated through a call center. At least that’s this editor’s understanding. Will it be useful? Will it catch on? What do you think? (Sorry there are more questions than answers! Steve)

Telecare Soapbox: The NHS revolution – 20 years on

September 20, 2012 | by

In this Soapbox, Peter Kruger, Managing Director of Steinkrug, looks backwards at the pressures that have shaped the NHS and forwards to a different kind of future for caring.

Twenty years ago the NHS underwent something of a revolution: one that went far beyond anything the former health secretary Andrew Lansley envisaged. Technology played a key role in what was perhaps one of the largest business re-engineering projects ever undertaken. The impact of this change is still being felt; not only by patients but also by their relatives who find themselves playing the role of carers. This is opening up opportunities for a number of organisations ranging from mobile health vendors to high street pharmacies.

The following 4 minute video clip shows how most people perceived the NHS before the 1990s – complete with some old fashioned social attitudes:

[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]

Only When I Laugh 1982. Watch the complete episode on YouTube

However, twenty years ago a wave of ageing baby boomers (the ones born during the 1920s, not those born in 1946) hit NHS hospital wards… (more…)

Telehealth Soapbox: Standing firm on the argument for telehealth is vital

September 7, 2012 | by | 3 Comments

<em>Keith Nurcombe, Telefonica’s global director of healthcare, and managing director of O2 Health UK, makes a rallying call to all telehealth supporters.</em>

Telehealth significantly reduces mortality rates, emergency admissions, A&amp;E visits, elective admissions, bed days and costs. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence, there is growing worry about its implementation. We’re far from crisis point, but unless we continue to argue the case for telehealth and promote the evidence available we will allow detractors to win.

That’s why I read with worry last week that the Nuffield Trust’s Adam Steventon – one of the lead investigators behind the WSD – had claimed he doubted the safety of telehealth. As the <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9509181/Doubts-raised-over-safety-of-doctor-by-broadband”>Telegraph reported</a>, he said… (more…)

Telehealth Soapbox: The questions (and answers) are out there

August 30, 2012 | by

Kishore Sankla, CEO of UK-based Solutions4Health, puts out a plea for proof of effectiveness through innovation and looks ahead to an era of consumer-driven services.

We in the industry are already fully convinced that telehealth works, and we have the satisfied customers to prove it.

The Whole System Demonstrator outcomes to date suggest that we have to focus in the right areas, aim for the right goals, and shout loud about our achievements in order to convince the payers of the enormous potential. Some really strong positive points have already emerged… (more…)

Telecare Soapbox: Regulation of the industry

August 28, 2012 | by | 3 Comments

Following the TA item Scummy website starts to make the case for telecare/telehealth industry regulation, Editor Steve points out in this shortest-ever Soapbox that, while formal regulation may be on the distant horizon (it may need legislation, and then it has to be policed, which is another issue), there is something that the Telecare Services Association (TSA) could do in just a few months that may even make statutory regulation unnecessary… (more…)

Telecare Soapbox: Why using PIR detectors to check on residents’ well being is profoundly dangerous and misguided

August 21, 2012 | by | 1 Comment

In response to yesterday’s item that included a reference to Contour Housing using a Tunstall PIR system to give an ‘I’m OK’ service, James Batchelor, Chief Executive of Alertacall, sets out why he believes that such a development is a bad move. Just because he has a commercial interest to defend – his company provides well being checks – this does not invalidate his points. If Tunstall, or any other supplier, would like to come back with a response, it will be published.

If you use passive infrared detectors (PIRs) to check on residents’ well being, then be prepared for them to passively kill someone.

With cutbacks to Supporting People funding housing providers are finding themselves in the predicament that they have fewer staff hours available to look after the needs of their sheltered residents. This risks eroding the life-saving daily contact of the ‘traditional’ warden-based morning call, which is time consuming for both the housing provider and its residents.

For decades this daily contact was the backbone of sheltered accommodation, real people checking on other real people. It provided an insight into individual resident’s care needs as they developed.

However, you cannot blame housing providers for (more…)