King’s Fund to run telehealth network

The Department of Health has funded a network to help expand use of telehealth and telecare and disseminate the lessons learned from the Whole System Demonstrator programme.

The Whole System Demonstrators Action Network involves an action research programme involving 10 to 12 of the unsuccessful sites for the WSD programme. The groups, made up of PCTs, local authorities and third sector organisations, will share information from the pilots as well as collecting data on the progress and impact of telecare and telehealth applications at their own sites.

The network will be run by health service research organisation the King’s Fund and the Care Services Improvement Partnership and will ensure that information from the WSD sites is shared as well as publishing evidence on the development of telecare, telehealth and community-based telemedicine.

The DH launched its WSD programme in May, providing £31m funding for three pilots in Kent, Cornwall and Newham which are to run the UK’s largest trial of telecare and telehealth techniques with the help of 7,000 patients suffering from long term conditions such as diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In addition to the action research programme the network will also include a public, free-to-access website that will provide access to published materials on the evidence base for assistive technology. The King’s Fund said anyone can register with the website to receive e-mail alerts to news, events and publications and its library resource.

Health minister Ivan Lewis, attending the launch of the network at the King’s Fund last week, said it was essential that the information from the pilot sites was shared among the experts.

He added: “This is exactly why the Demonstrator network established today is so important. I’m confident the network will help make hi-tech health care a reality for many more people.”

Dr Nick Goodwin, senior fellow at the King’s Fund, said it was vital to develop new ways of caring for the UK’s growing elderly population and the number of people living with chronic and long term conditions.

He added: “Advanced assistive technologies have the potential to facilitate this change but with so many products and devices on the market we need evidence to ensure everyone gets the best out of them.”

The network has been funded to run for two years until June 2010.

Links

Whole System Demonstrator Action Network

Whole System Demonstrator Programme

Care Services Improvement Partnership Telecare Network