Hampshire goes live with digital platform to support remote monitoring of Covid patients at home

A new digital platform is now in place across the Hampshire and Isle of Wight STP supporting remote care of patients with confirmed or suspected Covid.

The NHS approved supplier, Inhealthcare, has been rolled-out across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in primary, acute and out-of-hour care settings. So far, the Isle of Wight, West Hampshire and Portsmouth areas are live; with the rest of the county to follow in the coming days.

The introduction of Inhealthcare supports the ‘Covid Oximetry @ home’ (CO@H) service which has been launched over the course of November and December 2020. The service has been designed to support identification and management of patients at risk of deterioration. Patients with confirmed (or suspected) Covid are given an oximeter to monitor oxygen saturation levels in their bodies, and report these readings alongside other key systems on a regular basis to their healthcare team.

Inhealthcare will help healthcare staff and patients monitor symptoms, while maintaining social distancing and allowing patients to recover safely at home.

For staff, Inhealthcare offers a web-based dashboard of patients being monitored, prompts when readings haven’t been submitted, or when a patient may require intervention or support.

The Inhealthcare solution offers patients a variety of ways to provide their symptom information and oximeter readings, which are collected at regular intervals during the day, prompting clinical supervision or more help, as needed.

Patients choose their preferred contact method and can submit their oxygen readings, temperature, and levels of breathlessness via a link sent by email or SMS text message, or by inputting data on their telephone keypad via an automated phone call.

CO@H teams are also able to manually input data for patients who need to or would prefer to speak to someone over the phone.

Readings are kept securely within the Inhealthcare solution, accessible only to relevant CO@H team members.

The dashboards can show individual patient progress, and caseload level data. Nationally, mandated reports can be generated from within the solution. Integration into EMIS and SystmOne supports up-to-date patient records; mapping the progress and outcome of the time spent on the virtual ward.

The Inhealthcare digital solution means that patients, wherever they live in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, receive the same informed care.