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By Carl Mortished~Times Online
The scope of a new global healthcare market worth billions of pounds is being tested by Philips, the electronics group, in the UK with the world’s biggest trial of distance monitoring of chronically ill patients in their homes.
The Dutch company is hoping to prove to the NHS that it can stem the mounting financial burden of institutional care by using high-tech diagnostic equipment linked by the internet.
Patients in Newham, a deprived East London borough, are being monitored at home using diagnostic equipment linked via broadband internet connections to local hospitals and clinics. The Newham patients are able to test their own blood pressure or blood oxygen level and send the data in an electronic message to staff at the Primary Health Trust.
Further trials are under way in Cornwall and Kent, as the Department of Health (DoH) targets technology efficiencies that could save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds.
