System-wide transformation, cultural change, outcome-based commissioning and evidence review are all crucial to helping break down barriers to the deployment of technology-enabled care services, according to a new report.
The Good Governance Institute (GGI) and Tunstall Healthcare have launched a discussion paper exploring the barriers to the deployment of telehealth and telecare and making recommendations for policymakers.
If technology-enabled care services, such as telehealth and telecare, were life-saving cancer treatment, people would be rightly furious that they could not get treatment
Entitled Keeping the NHS Great, Delivering Technology Care Enabled Services , experts are calling for system-wide transformation and cultural change within NHS trusts, local authorities and third-sector organisations. Incentives must also be aligned, budgets pooled and commissioning outcome based, it says. And there is a need to collate best practice and review schemes once they are operational. Furthermore, it calls for increased national awareness and the launch of a patient empowerment programme with a personal technology ‘Czar’.
Stephanie Elsy, GGI associate and co-author of the report, said: “If technology-enabled care services, such as telehealth and telecare, were life-saving cancer treatment, people would be rightly furious that they could not get treatment. This technology transforms and saves patients’ lives, but is being put in the ‘too difficult’ box. Put simply, this resistance to change is stopping people getting the support they need to have a better life.”
The paper was put together with the help of a group of experts from health, housing and social care, including clinicians, nursing representatives and NHS commissioners, who came together to discuss the wider system, patient benefits, and recommendations for how to tackle the barriers of deploying technology-enabled care services. Further consultation was carried out via an online survey.
Headline findings from the quantitative and qualitative research undertaken included the following
- 85% of respondents said that telehealth was ‘very important’ or ‘important’ in developing pathways for patients with long-term conditions and better managing their care in the community
- The overwhelming majority (79%) of participants said they would be prepared to contribute to some, or all, of the costs or introducing telehealth from their own budgets
- In order to overcome the barriers of adopting technology, 64% said pooled budgets between health and social care would help
Click here to download the discussion paper, which will be launched at both the Labour and Conservative party conferences this month.