There are several trends and factors affecting admissions to residential care and nursing homes, among them the fact that proportionately the population is ‘growing older’ and people are living longer.

However, despite average increases in our lifespan, that doesn’t mean that everyone is fitter and healthier. Indeed, with long term conditions amongst the population also increasing, the need to care for more people with chronic illnesses is also rising.

Given that most residents in care homes are above a certain age and therefore more likely to have chronic illnesses, it is no surprise that their care is often more demanding when compared with patients in their own homes and in the local community.

Traditionally, care homes have monitored the health of their residents through their own trained staff/nurses, or through the services of a local community nurse or GP visiting on a frequent basis. With telehealth systems now widely available and accepted, tests are now increasingly being performed by care home staff, daily if necessary, with the results made available remotely to the nurse or doctor.

From a management and resourcing perspective, it frees up the time for nurses and doctors to focus their attention on treating patients rather than travelling to homes to perform individual or several tests.

Where there is demand for several patients to be monitored in this way, Docobo provides care homes with a multi-user HealthHUB where each individual patient’s details can be held safely and securely on a single device.

Care home staff simply perform the required tests with each patient, inputting their unique details and providing the relevant data to the clinician through a secure connection.

Although telehealth products and services are highly sophisticated and provide the clinician with accurate readings, they are also very easy to use.