How can Telehealth be used to aid those with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)?
The use of Telecare, Telemedicine & TeleHealth is becoming more of a target for NHS Health trusts, as the ability to treat a patient in their own home without a clinician leaving their base can bring both care and cost improvements.
At the moment NHS trusts are looking at the use of Telehealth equipment in order to help COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) sufferers but will it bring the benefits to justify the expense outlaid by health trusts.
COPD isn’t actually one disease but a Spectrum of different disorders that cause airflow obstruction, Treatment for which can be complex and the NICE guidelines for COPD patients cover 673 pages.
Statistics show that with the use of telecare there can be a 75% reduction in A&E attendance and 83% reduction in hospital admittance, but it’s also recognised that telehealth can only work in conjunction with a treatment plan which includes input from multi-disciplinary teams.
The problem with using telehealth with COPD sufferers is what do you measure? Measurable levels don’t change much during an episode, meaning that even a Face to Face meeting with a clinician can provide difficulty is measurement. Therefore the cost of expensive measuring equipment may prove to be wasted investment.
Perhaps the biggest advantage from current Teleheath technology is the ability to talk directly with patient to provide calming reassurance and support, both as support during Exacerbation and as an aid to depression.
The use of future telehealth equipment to reduce attacks by predicting Exacerbation.
COPD patients that have a productive cough (“the Morning Cough”) are more likely to have exacerbation, and the more frequent the cough the more likely the exacerbation. Currently paper based questionnaires are issued to COPD patients to capture key health information, the paper forms are starting to be replaced by telemonitoring systems, but it’s telehealth systems that automate cough recording that could provide the biggest benefits.
The number of coughs experienced by the patient increase during COPD as the patient is heading towards exacerbation, recordings of patients throughout the day can be electronically processed to identify coughs therefore significantly speeding up analysis, this would allow prompt intervention to stop the exacerbation.
Electronic Monitoring is more accurate then patient self-monitoring as chronic coughing is generally under reported by patient.