Doctors and nurses in Luton will be able to keep an eye on chronic patients outside of traditional clinical settings through a new innovative partnership with medtech start-up, Doccla.
Luton Children and Adults Community Health Services, a NHS service supporting people closer to, or at, home, is part of Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, and will work closely with Doccla to deliver a comprehensive remote patient monitoring service, including the latest innovative wearable technology.
This will enable clinical staff to monitor the vital signs of a patient remotely, either continuously or intermittently, via a secure web browser, while the patient recovers at home.
And patients suffering from long-term conditions, as well as those discharged from hospital with more acute conditions, could benefit from this technology.
Dag Larsson, chief executive and co-founder of Doccla, said: “The virtualisation of patient wards is a critical step in expanding health resources, increasing efficiency and capacity and, most importantly, delivering better patient care.
“It is exciting to see that there is recognition from the NHS of the benefits remote patient monitoring can bring and we are beginning to see interest swell.
“Doccla’s unique approach of using innovative tech combined with an ability to support clinical service means we overcame much-larger tech players to win this first of what we hope are many contracts.
“Our vision is to make virtual wards a day-to-day part of secondary patient care.” /
The contract is the first of its kind to be awarded through the new NHSX Remote Patient Monitoring framework agreement.
The framework is designed to accelerate the implementation of remote health monitoring solutions across the nation’s health and care settings.
Pete Reeve, service director at Luton Children and Adults Community Health Services, said: “We are excited to be working with Doccla to implement best-in-class technology that means we can keep those suffering with chronic conditions safe at home, thus reducing the risk of virus transmission while alleviating some of the time and capacity pressures felt by our staff.”
Doccla’s virtual wards, which is already used by Northampton General Hospital Trust and will now be installed in Luton, allow NHS trusts to reduce the number of vulnerable patients required to remain in hospital, increasing capacity to look after patients.
With rapid implementation and minimal effort required by trusts, Doccla can quickly reduce the cost and workload pressures on the NHS.
For patients, the virtual ward reduces anxiety and the need for hospital visits.
And the breadth of data gathered by the wearables gives the patient assurance that their care team has an eye on their health and will be alerted if their condition deteriorates.
The objective is to help certain patients to stay at home and thus avoid the need to be admitted to hospital unless they experience a deterioration in their condition.
All clinical responsibility remains with Cambridgeshire Community Services Trust, with Doccla providing a service that makes it possible to monitor patients remotely.
Every day each patient’s device will send automated readings and alerts of routine measurements, for example pulse and oxygen levels via Doccla to Luton clinicians who will review and take any action necessary.