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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The state of telehealth and telecare in the UK
— prospects for integrated care | | Author(s) | Nick Goodwin |
| Journal title | Journal of Integrated Care, vol 18, issue 6, December 2010 |
| Pages | pp 3-10 |
| Source | http://www.pierprofessional.com/jicflyer/index.htm. |
| Keywords | Health services ; Assistive technology ; Information technology ; Evaluation. |
| Annotation | Telehealth and telecare are both types of assistive technology that enable health and social care services to be provided remotely to people in their own homes. About 1.7 million people benefit from telecare services in the UK, but telehealth services have only around 5000 users, many of whom receive services through the Department of Health's Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) Pilot Programme. There is an identifiable chasm between early adopters and wider uptake of telehealth and telecare solutions. Key barriers include lack of robust evidence on cost-effectiveness, of a consumer market and of interoperability of the technology between service sectors, and the implications for professionals and organisations of changing their established methods of practice. Telehealth and telecare could be combined to provide a common platform to integrate care for people requiring both health and social care support, but relatively few people are judged suitable for joint care. This is related both to the nature of the technology and the profile of those people who can use it, and to the different ways in which health and social care systems assess who is most 'at risk', which makes it difficult to assess which individuals might best benefit from an integrated response to their care needs. More understanding of their benefits of care integration in the home environment is required to convince commissioners and providers of its potential. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110905004 A |
| Classmark | L: M: UVB: 4C |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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