A privately-developed app will start monitoring the health of potentially thousands of care home residents across north east London later this month.
Staff at care homes across the region will be tasked with measuring the vital signs of residents and entering them into an app created by Yorkshire-based company Inhealthcare.
This app, which will start being introduced into homes in the week beginning March 29, will then flag concerning readings with each resident’s GP.
All registered care homes in east London will be offered the app, although an NHS spokesperson declined to confirm how much it would cost the East London Health and Care Partnership to commission the service.
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Inhealthcare chief executive Bryn Sage said introducing the app into care homes will allow doctors to “spot the early warning signs of health deterioration”.
He said: “This new service bridges the gap between care home residents and doctors in a time of lockdowns and reduced face-to-face interactions.
“This simple and safe technology enables clinicians to spot the early warning signs of health deterioration and take the right steps to support the health and wellbeing of patients at home.”
A spokesperson from the company told the Local Democracy Reporting Service all data would only be available to “authorised NHS care teams” and would be “kept safely and securely in NHS-approved cloud storage providers”.
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Care homes will be given blood pressure monitors, blood glucose monitors and thermometers where necessary to carry out the readings.
Tower Hamlets GP Osman Bhatti, speaking on behalf of the East London Health and Care Partnership, said: “The roll out of remote patient monitoring in care homes is a critical programme of work to connect our primary care networks with care home residents.
“It will empower care home staff and enable early intervention in the care of vulnerable residents – helping us to closely manage their health and reduce avoidable hospital admissions.”
Doctors will decide which of their patients are suitable for the service and will be able to adjust the threshold for deeming a reading concerning on a case-by-case basis.
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