The UK’s National Telecare & Telehealth Conference 2010 took place in London from 15-17 November, under the title “Telecare and Telehealth – Drivers of Change”. More than 600 delegates attended, representing fields as diverse as industry suppliers, local authorities and academic institutions, and the conference offered a mixture of plenary sessions and workshops.
Major themes of the 2010 conference, organized by the UK Telecare Services Association (TSA), included the ethics of telecare and telehealth, the need for synergy across health and social care, balancing technologies with other forms of care and support, quality standards, the role of telemedicine in ageing population, and the opportunities for increased use of telemedicinein an era of economic downturn.
Telecare and telehealth are relatively young and burgeoning industries. In the UK, an estimated 1.7 million people already benefit from telecare – a mixture of services and equipment that enable, for example, older and vulnerable people to live independently. From simple alarms through to detectors and monitors, telecare systems provide a means for carers to respond to clients’ needs 24-hours a day, every day. Telecare systems can also be tailored to monitor an individual’s physical activity, health and well-being.
Telehealth takes telecare one step further – by monitoring vital signs such as blood pressure and transmitting information, via a response centre, to personnel able to make clinical judgements and decisions regarding a client’s health status and need for intervention or support. Today, telehealth is being used in the UK to monitor the health status of around 10,000 individuals with long-term health problems. It is hoped that current pilot schemes will eventually lead to large-scale, randomized studies of telehealth – studies that are needed to generate an evidence-base to convince clinicians and commissioners of the value of telehealth in patient management.
Major themes of the 2010 conference, organized by the UK Telecare Services Association (TSA), included the ethics of telecare and telehealth, the need for synergy across health and social care, balancing technologies with other forms of care and support, quality standards, the role of telemedicine in ageing population, and the opportunities for increased use of telemedicinein an era of economic downturn.
Telecare and telehealth are relatively young and burgeoning industries. In the UK, an estimated 1.7 million people already benefit from telecare – a mixture of services and equipment that enable, for example, older and vulnerable people to live independently. From simple alarms through to detectors and monitors, telecare systems provide a means for carers to respond to clients’ needs 24-hours a day, every day. Telecare systems can also be tailored to monitor an individual’s physical activity, health and well-being.
Telehealth takes telecare one step further – by monitoring vital signs such as blood pressure and transmitting information, via a response centre, to personnel able to make clinical judgements and decisions regarding a client’s health status and need for intervention or support. Today, telehealth is being used in the UK to monitor the health status of around 10,000 individuals with long-term health problems. It is hoped that current pilot schemes will eventually lead to large-scale, randomized studies of telehealth – studies that are needed to generate an evidence-base to convince clinicians and commissioners of the value of telehealth in patient management.
[Source: www.getinsidehealth.com]
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