Simply monitoring residents’ blood pressure, weight and hydration levels with information being fed directly into GP systems will help maintain health and prevent escalation to more specialist services. It will also be vital to the creation of additional intermediate care capacity. Digital health specialist, Inhealthcare, believe their new vital signs monitoring service can reduce emergency admissions of care home residents by acting as an early warning system. Their care home service includes measuring the residents’ weight, hydration, blood pressure & heart rate. The technology integrates patients’ data into GP systems, improving the coordination between care homes and the local NHS because results can be viewed by all departments. If readings fall outside of a patient’s normal range, the appropriate NHS team is alerted. This means changes in health are highlighted early on, reducing the likelihood of hospital admission. The service supports earlier hospital discharge because it gives clinicians the confidence that if the patient is discharged, their full needs will be being met with regular and close monitoring.
Inhealthcare has already worked with NHS County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT), one of the largest integrated acute and community services providers in England, to introduce an undernutrition monitoring service for elderly patients in 80 care homes. Ian Dove, the trust’s Business Development Manager says, “The NHS has known for a long time that care homes and the voluntary sector could expand out-of-hospital care delivery, if they could be more effectively integrated into local health and social care economies. The Inhealthcare platform provides the flexibility and interoperability we need to implement radically new models of care.”
For more information about Inhealthcare’s vital sign monitoring service for care homes www.inhealthcare.co.uk