Telehealth reduces death rates by 45%
Released 08/12/2011
Government rolls out successful telehealth and telecare programme to three million homes in England in an effort to save money and lives
More telehealth and telecare is to be rolled out across the country, after a Department of Health Study found it reduced death rates by 45% and emergency hospital admissions by 20%.
The Whole System Demonstrator Programme, run from May 2008 to September 2010, monitored 6,191 patients and 238 GP practices, for at least a year across Cornwall, Kent and Newham and was the largest trial of its kind to date.
It was deemed "a great success" by Prime Minister David Cameron.
"It's much more cost effective to do the preventative work and it's much better for people's quality of life," director of service improvement for NHS Cornwall, Carol Williams told the BBC.
"For these patients we're spending less money on crisis intervention and them going into hospital which in turn releases more money to be spent on preventative programmes and earlier detection."
The study found that, when implemented properly, telehealth could reduce death rates in patients with long-term conditions (LTCs) by 45%; reduce A&E visits by 15%; emergency admissions by 20%; bed days by 14%; and reduce tariff costs for patients with LTCs by eight per cent.
As a result of the successful trial, the government plans to roll out the use of telehealth and telecare technologies to the homes of three million people over the next five years as part of a campaign to help patients and reduce costs called ‘3 Million Lives'
"This is not just a good healthcare story," said Cameron, speaking at the launch of the Strategy for UK Life Sciences in London. "It's going to put us miles ahead of other countries commercially too as part of our plan to make our NHS the driver of innovation in UK life sciences."
"The headline findings from the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) programme clearly reinforce existing findings that demonstrate the real-life benefits provided by telecare and telehealth to patients and healthcare systems," commented John Dyson, chief executive of Telehealth Solutions.
"There are enormous savings to be made from the implementation of telehealth that could be reinvested in patient care; we estimate that these savings could be over £1bn per year which combined with the improvement in clinical outcomes demonstrated in the WSD results makes the adoption of this approach a real and pressing necessity."
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