Global Health Equity Foundation and IngeniumCare, LLC: gathering appropriate evidence for adoption of the ‘CareGo Remote TeleHealthCare System’

Heginbotham, Chris and Marshall, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6816-2362 (2013) Global Health Equity Foundation and IngeniumCare, LLC: gathering appropriate evidence for adoption of the ‘CareGo Remote TeleHealthCare System’. International Journal of Integrated Care, 13 (7).

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Abstract

Millions of elderly and chronically ill people live at home either alone or with a cognitively impaired family member. Their daily health and safety is a huge concern for their family, friends, and healthcare providers. They worry that a family member could fall, forget to take their medication, become acutely ill suddenly, or experience an emergency situation such as a fire. Often family members live far away, are at work or busy with the responsibilities of caring for their own families. Vulnerable clients have several options for obtaining care including using a NHS community health or social care provider, independent home care service, or moving into an assisted living or long-term care facility. Care in the home is often not offered to the technical level required and it is expensive for NHS or local authorities to provide. Most people’s first choice is to continue living in their own home for as long as possible. The Ingenium CareGo Remote Healthcare System will alert family members or healthcare providers around the clock of potentially dangerous situations, allowing for immediate intervention and assistance. If the service user has missed taking medication or an important health measurement, such as blood pressure or blood sugar, the CareGo system can contact care-givers by phone, SMS text, or email. The CareGo system is an integrated solution combining unified communications, reminders to complete activities, tracks activity completion, and provides activity logs. Wireless devices support performance of health measurements, such as blood pressure, blood glucose, and weight, with data being easily retrievable by family and healthcare providers at any time. Through providing proactive verbal or visible reminders the system cues clients to take their medications on time and displaying the correct dose and administration instructions. A touchscreen Point of Care Appliance (POCA), is placed in the patient’s home and is the heart of the system. The POCA user interface displays large, simplified icons to enable the patient easily to initiate phone, video, twitter, SMS or email communication. It shows a daily calendar with reminders for all important daily activities, such as taking medications, health measurements, treatments, exercises, or going to a doctor’s appointment. CareGo also integrates with home environmental controls and with motion detectors. Graphic icons on POCA connect the client to emergency contacts with one touch, as well as to things such as family photo slides shows and internet based games. CareGo can be used as part of an integrated care coordination plan for patient education, improved adherence with treatments and medications, and compliance with discharge instructions following hospitalization. This technology is to be piloted in the Billings Clinic in Billings, Montana, USA with 30 patients initially rising to 200 over six months during the first part of 2013. The pilot is to ensure that the system is technically feasible and is acceptable to patients, family and clinicians. The presentation will: describe the system briefly; discuss the evaluation and evidence gathering methodology; describe ways in which the evaluation might be improved to enhance chances of adoption.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	International Journal of Integrated Care
Publisher:	Ubiquity Press
ISSN:	1568-4156
Departments:	Academic Departments > Health, Psychology & Social Studies (HPSS) > Rehabilitation Research Centres > Cumbrian Centre for Health Technologies (CACHET)
Additional Information:	Conference abstract, International Congress on Telehealth and Telecare, London, 1-3 July 2013.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2019 12:27
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 12:01
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/4890

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