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Improving patient's lives and reducing NHS costs

Date posted: 11 Feb 2015

One 85 year old patient, Ken* has been long suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and heart failure. COPD is the name for a collection of lung diseases. It causes difficulty breathing, a persistent cough with phlegm and frequent chest infections.

Before Florence was introduced to Ken, his GP and hospital visits were very frequent and he was requiring up to 20 urgent home visits per year. Ken was suffering very badly and he was having steroid and antibiotic therapy almost every month. Although the therapy made him feel much better, during the course he became panicked and his mood was very low each time the therapy ended and he began to feel unwell again. The therapy isn’t a permanent cure and the negative results after the therapy were affecting Ken’s mental state as well as his physical health making his life difficult and putting him in a permanent state of fear and dread.

Ken lives in a rural area and declined any intervention. He has two daughters, both who live over 30 miles away from him. Between the two of them they were visiting him everyday. He also has a carer who visits daily making sure he’s up and dressed. Ken needed constant reassurance about his health and as he felt he required this from a professional, his life and his daughters’ were extremely limited by his visits.

Florence was suggested to the family and they agreed to try using the system in February 2013. Ken and his daughters can now text into Flo with his BP and pulse rates, oxygen saturation levels and weight. If the readings are within certain parameters set then Florence texts back to reassure the patient. If they are slightly outside of the parameters set range then the system will text back with suggestions on things Ken can do to make himself feel better, such as warming his hands or taking his medication. If the readings are abnormal then Florence will suggest that he calls for medical assistance.

He now feels that he can comfortably trust his daughters when they say that his health is stable and he is able to manage his own health more easily. Ken’s daughters both feel more confident in making the right decisions and they’re able to support and reassure their dad. One of his daughters said, “I feel like Flo and the support of the Community Matron has given me my life back”.

Ken is really happy now that he’s able to monitor his own health more easily, cutting down on the time he has to spend at his GP and in hospital.

The graph below illustrates how dramatic the cuts have been in one year:

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 15.31.01

As the graph shows; the urgent visits that Ken felt he needed were cut by over three quarters and his need for GP and hospital visits reduced too. The most beneficial statistic for Ken is the 50% drop in his steroid and antibiotic therapy now he’s using Florence. After therapy he always felt very low so by cutting this down to just 4 times peryear it improves Ken’s mood and his standard of life significantly.

Case study provided by Nottinghamshire Health & Social Care Team from their Flo Simple Telehealth Evaluation Report 2013/2014.

*Patient name changed to protect identity