Wales pilots virtual mental health pathway

Patients with mental health conditions in two care homes will get enhanced care via Spirit Health’s CliniTouch Vie remote patient monitoring platform to help improve their wellbeing and reduce hospital admissions.

An initial six-month pilot project will see CliniTouch Vie deployed in two large care homes run by Swansea Bay University Health Board, Hengoed Park and Hengoed Court, supporting residents with dementia and other mental health conditions.

It will enable the mental health in-reach team to monitor patients on a regular basis and receive results in real-time to review.

The Welsh Government has funded Spirit Health through the Digital Solutions Fund, managed by Life Sciences Hub Wales through the Digital Health Ecosystem Wales (DHEW) programme, to deliver a co-designed mental health pathway.

This pilot project will help us in ensuring the residents that are referred to us receive regular reviews and, therefore, enabling us to deliver a more-efficient and productive service

The technology will provide an extra tool for the team and care homes to use to monitor patients.

This enhances the delivery of care and allows for early intervention that helps keep people out of hospital and increases health system capacity.

Care workers at the homes will complete the bespoke and clinically-led mental health questions, as well as taking the patient’s vital sign measurements daily, weekly, or monthly, or as specified by the team.

And CliniTouch Vie will automatically analyse the data and generate a risk-scored list of prioritised actions, enabling the team to intervene and provide urgent care for referrals where required.

Fiona Williams from the mental health in-reach team said: “We are excited to be involved in this pilot project and we hope it will help us in ensuring the residents that are referred to us receive regular reviews and, therefore, enabling us to deliver a more-efficient and productive service.”

Dawn Griffin, directorate manager for older people’s mental health services at Swansea Bay University Health Board, added: “When the concept of this innovative project came to my attention, I seized the opportunity.

We’re proud to play our part and introduce our digital solution, CliniTouch Vie, to help patients with mental health issues and provide them with the support and intervention they need, while reducing pressures on the health system

“I strongly believed that this project could have a real positive impact on service delivery between our care home in-reach team and care homes.

“To finally see this project come to fruition is simply fantastic.”

And Dr Noel O’Kelly, clinical director at Spirit Health, concluded: “At Spirit Health, we are excited to partner with the Welsh Government to expand our technology pathways into a new area, with a clinical mental health pathway to assist care homes.

“We’re proud to play our part and introduce our digital solution, CliniTouch Vie, to help patients with mental health issues and provide them with the support and intervention they need, while reducing pressures on the health system.”