Intellect to launch telemedicine group

UK IT trade body Intellect has told E-Health Insider that it plans to start a dedicated telehealth group, following its participation in a US telemedicine conference.

Representatives from the UK gave a presentation at the Boston Partners Telemedicine Annual Symposium, held at the Harvard Medical Centre on 18-19 September, promoting the British telehealth industry.

The symposium ‘Connected Health – Empowering Care through Communication Technologies’ was attended by thousands of healthcare technology managers from across America.

The UK was represented by IT trade union Intellect, who led a panel debate called ‘Delivering 21st Century healthcare to the home’, focusing on the developments and use of telemedicine in the UK.

Intellect’s healthcare programme manager, Sinead Quinn was joined on the panel by Dr Mike Bainbridge, the clinical architect for NHS Connecting for Health. Also on the panel were Intellect health industry members, Tim Boulton of BT, Jeremy Nettle of Oracle, Adrian Flowerday of Docobo, and Gordon Peterkin, director of Scottish Committee for Telehealth.

The panel focused on telemedicine in the UK including the innovative use of devices in Scotland and Wales and the EU backed Doc@Home system. They also described new developments and models that support chronic disease management – which are being looked at by local centres of excellence.

Quinn told EHI: “Companies in the US are interested in investing in the UK telemedicine initiatives. We are much more progressed than them, and are quite advanced in our thinking, so they are very interested in the UK market and building business here. There could well be opportunities in the future.”

Quinn added that as a result of the conference, one US e-health industry alliance, Continua Health Alliance, will be holding a members meeting in London in January to look more closely at accelerating the development of UK telemedicine.

The industry e-health alliance has been funded by Intel and is supported by CfH. The alliance brings together leading health and assistive technology companies to help NHS and social care services deliver even better care to people with long term conditions.

Quinn said of telehealth: “It wasn’t a huge area of focus for us before, but as a result of the conference, there is a space for this area in the intellect programme and we will start a telehealth group at intellect.”

The Government’s White Paper, Our health, our care, our say, makes it clear that assistive technology is set to grow as health and social care services move to provide people with more independence, choice and control.

The White Paper highlights the "exciting new possibilities opened up by assistive technologies" and makes a commitment to demonstrate how assistive technology can make a difference to people’s lives through a series of pilot sites.

NHS CfH is contributing to the debate by exploring how assistive technology might be provided on a bigger scale but in a sustainable way for the longer term.

Successful initiatives have been launched in Kent, Barnsley and Newham and CfH say they will continue to look at telemedicine initiatives.

“We are happy to hear that NHS CfH is exploring how assistive technology might be provided on a bigger scale but in a sustainable way for the longer term and we hope that this will pave the way for new opportunities for our member companies,” Quinn added.