Healthcare Magazine April 2018 | Page 24

one thing at a time . It ’ s when you start looking at these telehealth and telecare services aimed at people with multiple chronic conditions , or who are frail and elderly , and you ’ re monitoring different vital signs , movement in the home , medication and compliance . It just becomes an inherently more complex thing to put in place .

“ So that is basically why it ’ s difficult to implement . You ’ ve got several different parts of the care system involved . As we know , health and social care is very fragmented . There are different financial silos , different sorts of professional silos , and you ’ ve got to align all those if it ’ s going to work .”

The complexity of how health services around the world are funded is without doubt one of , if not the biggest barrier to widescale adoption , alongside the fact that no solution or technology has come to the fore which guarantees cost savings for a healthcare provider . The lack of any sure-fire solutions on the market is a problem , but it does appear , at least , that a market and competition is being created when it comes to how specialist medical equipment is now being produced .

– James Barlow , Professor of Technology and Innovation Management ( Healthcare ) at Impe College Business School

“ All the big global electronics traders are now involved ,” Barlow says . “ Back in the early noughties , it was very much specialist companies just making one sensor monitor , for example , for a particular length of time . But now it ’ s Philips , it ’ s Samsung , it ’ s Siemens , all involved in telehealth and telemedicine , and trying to push it . I think the momentum will speed up from now on .”

Barlow was involved in the world ’ s biggest trial of telehealth and telecare , the Whole System Demonstrators programme , which was funded by the UK Department of Health and finished about six years ago . Despite

24 April 2018