Supporting Care and Independence at Home

The 2004 Department of Health publication "Improving Chronic Disease Management" highlights that: 17.5 m adults in the UK may be living with a chronic disease; Around 80% of GP admissions relate to chronic disease; Patients with a chronic disease or complications use over 60% of hospital beds. Evidence from the US suggests that people with chronic conditions consume 78% of all health spending. The NHS modernisation agency has suggested that patients with chronic diseases should, in the future, no longer end up in acute beds when they could be treated in a community setting, or supported at home.

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a major chronic disease which has been recognised in the UK with a National Service Framework (NSF) for Coronary Heart Disease. In industrialised countries it affects 1% of the population on average and 10% at 70 years of age. It accounts for 5 per cent of all medical admissions to the hospital (120,000 hospital admissions annually) costing an estimated £360 million to the NHS with 6,000 deaths each year from CHF.

The disease has a poor prognosis as within 5 years of diagnosis there is a 50% mortality, and many debilitating, costly and unplanned hospital admissions. Indeed, as many as 50% of patients are readmitted within 3 months of initial discharge. It has been suggested that up to 50% of hospital admissions for heart failure are preventable.

Telecare proposes an earlier diagnosis and with more appropriate and timely use of drugs this can increase patient survival and their quality of life. A weight gain of just a few pounds can signal that a chronic heart failure patient is retaining fluid, for example. If caught early enough, the patient may be able to take medication or otherwise manage the problem at home, rather than having to be hospitalised which improves care and saves money. There is extensive evidence that hospitalisation rates in patients with heart failure can be substantially reduced by improved patient education, patient self monitoring of weight, and rapid response to early signs of clinical deterioration. Telehealth interventions for CHF have tended to be based on devices asking specific questions with answers being entered by users. The information provided is then often supplemented with data from weighing scales and blood pressure monitors, with this being forwarded through the telephone system to a central sever. Here medical staff review the data and respond to patients with increasing risk. Automated software is also becoming available that can highlight to practitioners when a certain patient is outside of practitioner defined parameters or is not using their equipment regularly.

Lifestyle monitoring systems, using movement detectors and magnetic proximity switches on fridge and entry doors, can generate a profile of the user's lifestyle. Deviations from the normal profile can result in an alert being generated.