“The NHS has quite an expensive IT system that, frankly, is not essential for the front line” (pt 2)
Technology is not just helpful in management of drugs and treatment, but it can also be used in a preventative capacity. Over the next 10 years we will see remote monitoring systems which do everything from blood pressure monitoring, sending medical data securely to specialists in the case of problems, to remote drug delivery and interactive telemedicine.
These are not complicated systems but have potentially huge benefits. Imagine being able to release patients out of hospital wings early and place them in ‘Hospital Hotels’ where skilled nurses and doctors can monitor patients proactively using sophisticated technology and provide them with a more comfortable environment to recover in. This not only costs less money to run but also frees up beds in hospitals for more intensive cases reducing waiting times and increasing the quality of patient care.
Or perhaps we look at the increasing problem of obesity in this country and the increasing incidence of diabetes. A remote monitoring system which monitors blood sugar levels and sends the data to a system which flags the GP is further intervention is required is simple, cheap and very effective in improving care. This device alone could act on acute episodes and remove the need for hospitalization.
Even a simple accelerometer integrated into a watch with a wireless chipset could phone an ambulance if an at-risk individual experienced a fall or an accident. By the age of 75+, the annual cost of servicing our healthcare needs are approximately 6x what they are in the 34-44 age bracket – much of this due to the disproportionate amount of time spent in hospital and on medication. If these can be reduced, then the overall cost of healthcare delivery can be dramatically cut whilst improving the quality of life for the patient.
None of these ideas are revolutionary. None of them are expensive to design or build and all of them use technologies which exist today, but so long as the NHS IT system remains closed, then they will remain within the domain of the private individual or private hospital group and out of the hands of those who would benefit most from it.
Tomorrow I will go into how this situation came into being and how we can go about fixing it
