Making the Business case for Telehealth and telecare

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Am watching the King's Fund Telehealth and Telecare conference and it is fascinating.
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


The challenges faced by these projects are oh so similar as those faced in so many other sectors of UK society.

Couple of points: (the videos will be archived and bear watching)

a) The Cornwall project had no broadband to work with so could only play with telehealth and telecare toys that worked over phone lines. (Those behind ActNow should be ashamed at what that says about the huge amount of money thrown at that county to resolve that problem earlier this decade, let alone what is once again being thrown at Cornwall now). Imagine what could have been done with the £31million these pilots have had if the comms infrastructure claimed by the telcos actually existed in this country?

b) There is a difference between telecare kit and telehealth kit. e.g. telecare includes smoke alarms, CO2 monitors, etc, and telehealth kit is much more about vital signs. This is still pretty primitive stuff compared to what telehealth means in many countries abroad, and what was taken for granted by many speakers in Milan just 2 weeks ago. I'm looking forward to the international speakers this afternoon and tomorrow, who I suspect may pop a few bubbles.

c) The users chose the simplest, least glamorous pieces of equipment. Even though there were touch screen, funky 'toys' on offer, the focus groups etc chose the ones they liked to use most. There is a lesson in this for all public procurement - ask the users, first, and secondly, it does not need to be the all-singing, all-dancing, most expensive equipment that hits the buttons for those who must use it.

d) The best story told during the event so far is that of Eddie, who has COPD. The fact that he can now monitor his own situation means that he now sees the correlation between how he feels and what the monitoring shows him - visually, on his TV as I understood it. What this has done it to release him from 5 years of not going out of his house, because he understands his illness far more clearly.

Jamesks on the Tweetstream said: Rather damning evidence on how medical profession have failed to help people take control of their health in the past.

Valid point which many holistic practioners would agree with, but putting a more positive slant on it, when KPMG run their post-lunch session on making the business case for telehealth, it would be interesting to see what GBP pound sterling value they put on Eddie's increased confidence, freedom, improved quality of life etc etc.

Because surely that should be what telehealth is about? Improving patients' lives. Yes, it should not drain the coffers dry to implement it, but surely someone should be seriously taking into account these individual stories, including those from the smoking cessation groups who were also highlighted who have found it much easier to give up because of the increased support available.

This is the SOCIAL CAPITAL side that I have been arguing for years should be shown on the balance sheets for any such project, including deploying FTTH.

BT may not want to be forced to set up so-called non-economically viable projects, but government and local authorities must look at more than just cash projections and profit forecasts, and take on board exactly what benefits and value these type of services have for citizens' well-being, quality of life, and hence the contributions that those people then put back (often many times over) into society.