Mobile Phones are good for your health and can save the NHS millions.

Mobile Phones are good for your health and can save the NHS millions.

Modern healthcare provision world-wide is faced with extreme pressure as the number of people with long term conditions (LTCs) such as diabetes, COPD and hypertension reaches epidemic proportions. The cost of managing such patients (who account for 15% of the total UK population) is disproportionately high, requiring intensive nursing and costly admissions to hospital. In the UK 80% of all GP visits and 60% of acute bed days are attributed to this group of patients. Many of the hospital admissions could be avoided by early intervention and/or education.

A new technology, utilising a patient’s own mobile phone has the potential to change all that. With 16 clinical trials under its belt t+ medical offers a service to PCTs and GPs to remotely monitor their patients with Diabetes, Asthma, COPD and certain Cardiovascular conditions. The results of the trials have proven that such a telemonitoring system can substantially contribute to the delivery of gold standard care. In one trial the proportion of patients with a HbA1C score of less than 8% rose from 10% to 45% after only 9 months usage. This is of particular interest to GPs who receive QoF points for controlling patients’ HbA1C scores.

The telemonitoring system comprises the t+ software, which can be installed on the patient’s mobile phone, allowing them to communicate real-time symptom, status and vital sign information with a central database. The patient no longer needs to carry a diary around and all their data is available to review or print out at their leisure. The data is also visible to the monitoring station staffed by trained, nurse supervised, personnel who have access to the t+ dashboard, which prioritises patients based on a series of algorithms developed at Oxford University. These contain many useful features such as an HbA1C predictor for people with diabetes (with similar accuracy to a blood test) and Air Quality indicators for patients with respiratory conditions. Regular phone based contact allows improvement of the patient’s expertise. Event based interaction can prevent admissions and effectively triage patients so that nurses are targeting their time on those who need it most. GPs and Nurses are also able to see the dashboard and summary data can be transferred to systems like EMIS or Orion.

What makes this technology different is the fact that t+ runs on the mobile phone, allowing the system to be accessible to large numbers of patients. It also means that no expensive hardware or technicians are required to install it. The system can cost as little as £26.50 per year per patient and patients can be fully monitored for £143 per year. At these prices PCTs or GPs can realize substantial savings and enjoy an estimated return on investment of 300%, based on the cost of saved admissions. Important added benefits include improved quality of care to the patient and the potential for saving drug costs

T+ Medical, the company supplying the t+ system, has also been chosen as the technology partner of Newham PCT and NHS Direct in the government’s “Whole System Demonstrator”, which is part of the National Telecare and Telehealth programme. The Health Secretary at the time of the launch, Patricia Hewitt, said "Improving patient care with new scientific advances and innovation is vital if the NHS is to continue to offer the very best services…..Remote devices mean greater choice and independence for patients, with more people able to monitor and look after their own health. So a person with diabetes can have their blood sugar monitored from home - meaning less unexpected or emergency trips to hospital."

Future projects from t+ medical include software for insulin titration in patients with type 2 diabetes (the software actually calculates the optimum dose change). This module has successfully completed two feasibility trials in primary care. Also in the R&D pipeline is a chemotherapy management tool which has been used successfully in clinical trials in Oxford.

For further details or to organise a demonstration of the system to your PCT, PBC or Practice please contact John Buchan ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) on 01235 432050

Download T+ Medical

The Month - Newsletter from the NHS Leadership Team

Each month I want to give you an update from the NHS Management Board and focus on key issues for the NHS. In addition, the month will be the opportunity to catch up with the work being led by members of the NHS Leadership Team,so you can brief your staff on the big issues of the month.

July was an extremely busy and important month for the NHS with
the departure of Patricia Hewitt as Secretary of State, the arrival of
Alan Johnson as the new Health Secretary and an almost entirely
new set of Ministers, and the launch of the NHS Next Stage Review
led by Lord Darzi.

The NHS Leadership team has been strengthened by the arrival of
the new Director General Commercial Directorate, Chan Wheeler
and the appointment of Matthew Swindells as the Interim Director
General for Information and Programme Integration. Both of these
new appointments are covered more inside. The team will be
completed by the appointment of the new NHS Medical Director,
which I hope to announce in the month ahead.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been up and down the country
visiting a whole raft of NHS organisations with Lord Darzi as part of
the NHS Next Stage Review. I have been struck by the energy and enthusiasm with which NHS staff have welcomed the review and see this – alongside the work we are doing on our values – as key to building a compelling vision to transform the NHS.
Shortly we’ll see the publication of the quarter, led by David Flory our new Director General for Finance, Performance and Operations. This will look at the performance – including financial – of the NHS for the first three months of the year, highlighting where we’re doing well and where we need to focus harder.
I do hope these publications will prove useful, but I also – as ever – welcome your feedback.

David Nicholson

Dr Foster Intelligence

Dr Foster Intelligence launches the second issue of Intelligence 
 
Intelligence examines the role information is playing in improving healthcare in the NHS and uses case studies to highlight examples of best practice.
 
This issue is about ‘Intelligent Commissioning’ and highlights the ways PCTs and GPs are using information to strengthen commissioning and support PBC.  The 15 people and organisations in this issue discuss the problems they are facing in creating world class commissioning and speak freely about their creative approaches to information use and making practice based commissioning a reality. 

To request a hard copy of the report or to find out more, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .