The service ‘Advice and Guidance’ offers the opportunity for GPs across Morecambe Bay to hold a secure electronic ‘conversation’ with a hospital specialist to obtain real time advice about a patient’s condition. This can often enable a patient to be managed under the care of their local GP.
As part of Better Care Together, Cumbria Health on Call (CHOC) has created a short film introducing the new virtual out of hours GP appointments that can be offered by a state of the art video link between Millom Community Hospital and Cumbria Health on Call (CHOC) headquarters in Carlisle.
This development for patients in Millom is thanks to work done within the Millom Alliance including a partnership between Better Care Together and Cumbria Health on Call (CHOC).
Last year I was exposed to a hugely positive experience of using digital collaboration tools for the first time within my work in the NHS [adult and older people's community services]
This made me realise that the tools I have routinely and unquestioningly used for years (email and documents) are hopelessly ineffective for the work that I do.
We used Confluence, a wiki (which is a website that anyone can edit), and Slack a group messaging service.
We found that Confluence could replace documents, email and big meetings; Slack could replace email, SMS and small meetings.
Those of us who used the tools, worked more effectively together, saved time and felt better connected. The benefits were that… – we had more productive meetings, as many routine transactions were dealt with outside of the meeting room people could make their voice heard without having to attend face-to-face meetings and could participate in discussions at times which suited them – we reached consensus quicker without having to wait to set up meetings, or to manage complex email discussions – we involved others outside of our usual sphere of influence – we had a permanent and readily visible record of discussions – we received fewer emails, since we could choose to receive updates only about things we were interested in – we could get messages to large numbers of people quickly. Over about a year we managed to get about 250 people using Confluence and about 50 using Slack. Enough to be significant.
We’ve just heard that SSOTP will not be renewing their agreement with SSSFT LKS for library services for this financial year. Because of this we will be reviewing our Be Aware bulletins. Sadly we won’t be accepting any new sign-ups from SSOTP staff and will be withdrawing some of the physical healthcare bulletins that we…
We're currently making some changes in the background of our email updates to solve some problems we've been having recently. During our testing phase this may automatically generate some alerts, which will show below, but you can ignore these! If all goes according to plan we will be resuming normal service in the next week…
Telehealth, which already helps thousands of patients with long-term conditions to be cared for in their own homes, allows the patient to remotely provide daily data to nurses and clinicians to monitor their condition. Conditions already monitored by Telehealth include diabetes, epilepsy and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Cornwall is the first county in England to use Telehealth to help patients manage urinary tract infections (UTIs).
The authors point out that whereas digital technology is transforming almost all areas of our lives – enabling us to order shopping online or book airline tickets, for example – its use in the NHS is still limited. They explore the evidence to date from seven types of technology for patients in primary care, including online triage programmes such as symptom-checkers, so-called ‘wearable technology’ like Fitbits, online GP appointment booking, video consultations, and health-related apps.
Here is a round up under the key themes and areas identified by Simon Stevens with links to services and solutions [some digital] that work.
Includes sections for mental health services, dementia, end of life care, primary care, discharge planning/frailty.
1st two CQC inspections were for Dr Now digital apps. You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please be clear which article you are requesting.
[Swedish research] Video consultation is a satisfactory tool for healthcare personnel, and the technology is a new, useful method, especially for the district nurses. Further, video consultation is an opportunity for healthcare personnel to learn. However, for it to work as an accepted method, the technology must function well and be user friendly. It must also be clear that it is beneficial for the patients and the healthcare personnel. Please contact the library to receive a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai