Telehealth is seen as one of the key ways to improve the quality of healthcare using innovative methods.
The aim is to allow people to monitor their health at home and cut down on the need for hospital visits and stays.
NHS Yorkshire and the Humber has agreed to create the telehealth hub to provide infrastructure and support.
It will promote telemonitoring, where patients with ongoing conditions can monitor their health at home and the results are automatically transmitted to medics, and teleconsultation, where doctors hold appointments with patients via videoconferencing.
The aim is also to promote tele-education, where education and training is provided by video or online.
In a report to NHS Yorkshire bosses, director for patient care and partnerships Professor Sue Proctor said more use of telecare could improve the quality of healthcare, reduce the number of routine outpatient appointments and the number of times people become acutely ill.
"Telecare deployment in social care dramatically increases the potential for people to retain independence and live in their own homes for considerably longer," the report added.
According to a scenario in the report, a 74-year-old woman with diabetes, kidney disease and a lung condition would need several hospital and GP visits, as well as hospital stays, during a year.
But in future she could have consultations through her TV and monitoring would alert medics to her condition worsening, meaning she could have urgent consultant appointments via video instead of needing to go into hospital.
Investment to create the regional hub is to come from the Regional Innovation Fund though the level will depend on how many health bodies across Yorkshire want support to implement telehealth projects.
Telehealth has already been pioneered by Airedale NHS Trust, near Keighley, where consultants have been using video technology to provide appointments with prisoners at jails all over the country.
Other patients with long-term conditions are also set to have their consultations at home through their TV sets.
The aim is to prevent them having to make so many trips to hospital, which will also save the NHS money.
It is hoped the new Yorkshire telehealth hub will be running by early next year.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Katie Baldwin
Quelle/Source: Yorkshire Evening Post, 17.04.2010
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