Bexley, Wandsworth Councils onboarding remote monitoring, video calls with COVID-19 the spur (UK)

November 6, 2020 | by

With Round 2 of the pandemic hitting the UK (and rising rates in EU and also parts of the US), it’s timely that borough councils have already stepped up their efforts to extend home monitoring and connectivity to the most vulnerable older adults and disabled. Here’s a short roundup:

  1. The London Borough of Bexley has been working with Docobo to install their DOC@HOME technology to connect residents with their GP to manage their health and well being at home. DOC@HOME connects with the patient via tablet (Android) tablet, computer, Docobo TV, or smartphone to their clinical teams to enroll, set up, and manage their patients using Docobo’s reporting platform. This version of DOC@HOME used two types of question sets: to set up a doctor consult requested by the resident or staff member and to conduct monthly wellness checks. The pilot was completed with one care home with these results (2019 vs 2018 same period): 71 percent fewer visits by GPs to the care home, and 36 percent fewer visits by residents to A&E. Bexley is now rolling out to 20 care homes using an NHS Digital pathfinder grant. Later plans will be rollout to individual homes.
  2. The Bexley Council is also piloting another Docobo product, ARTEMUS, a risk stratification platform, with the Bexley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to create an analytics and decision support platform to support a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing at the individual level. Risk stratification at its most essential level uses data to classify residents or patients at their level of health risk (multiple chronic conditions) with the objective of mitigating long-term escalations in care needs and emergencies and integrate support, particularly to integrate support for those with dementia. 1 and 2 from NHS AI Lab Hat tip to Adrian Flowerday of Docobo for his LinkedIn post.
  3. Wandsworth Council is working with Alcove to provide the Carephone tablet to their residents who receive a care or support package. The Carephone enables them to make video calls with family, friends, care workers, and other approved service providers. Wandsworth Council article.

UK roundup: CCIO Simon Eccles warns against ‘shiny objects’, NHS Liverpool CCG award to Docobo, 87% concerned with NHS info security

February 23, 2018 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]NHS Digital CCIO doesn’t like ‘shiny objects’. Dr. Simon Eccles used his first NHS Digital board meeting as national CCIO to encourage delivering the current agenda first and not getting distracted by the ‘shiny objects’ of new innovations which also divert funding. “It is our collective challenge to make sure that doesn’t happen to things that are valued by the NHS – to do what we said we’d do and not be too distracted by new and shiny things.” This seems to be at odds with non-executive director Daniel Benton, who “suggested that NHS Digital needed to become more flexible as an organisation so that it was in a better position to roll with the punches in future.” Digital Health News

Docobo announced their win of the NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group‘s scale up of telehealth as part of the Healthy Liverpool program. The three to five-year contract has a maximum value of £11.5 million. The current Mi Programme (More Independent) partly funded by the Innovate UK dallas initiative and using Philips equipment is at 900 patients with 5,300 total patients since 2013. The plan is to scale up the program to 4-5,000 patients a year and support new clinical pathways and conditions including lung conditions, heart failure, and diabetes. Docobo’s platform is Doc@Home which uses patient information from the CarePortal device or their own digital devices. Docobo release. NHS Innovation Accelerator, Digital Health News

A survey of 500 British adults conducted by UK IT VAR Proband found that perceptions of public sector information security are poor. 87 percent were concerned about the security of their information with the NHS. Of that 87 percent, 34 percent were ‘very concerned’ about their cybersecurity. Taking this with a grain of salt, 80 percent distrusted security at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and 78 percent on data held by the police. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can’t come too soon [TTA 17 Feb] — but are you ready? More in Proband’s Online Security Audit (PDF).