Telehealth: overcoming barriers - a new book chapter

The logic and arguments for telehealth are compelling. Providing people with technology in their own homes to enable them to manage their own care better and thus have better health. Additionally the technology can be used by service providers to identify areas of patient concern earlier and therefore support preventative health by intervening earlier than otherwise would be possible.
Over recent years the evidence base has become more informative, including the large Randomised Control Trial through the Department of Health’s Whole System Demonstrator project. However despite this momentum telehealth is still in its infancy with more promise than reality.

In a new book ‘Essential Lessons for the Success of Telehomecare’ published by the IOS, RAT group members Doctors Simon Brownsell and Annette Haywood have joined forces with Professor Sue Mawson to write a chapter on the barriers and challenges to telehealth implementation.

By highlighting common pitfalls as well as building upon known successes the chapter discusses barriers often encountered with particular attention given to lessons categorised under the following three headings.(1) Structural – determining whether telehomecare should be embraced; (2) Implementation - obstacles experienced when implementing telehomecare, (3) Adoption - difficulties translating small scale initiatives to mainstream service delivery.

 [written by Simon Brownsell]

ScHARR's inaugural lectures

Stuart Parker, Gail Mountain & Mark Hawley

At the School of Health and Related Research, of which the RAT research group is  part, we have a series of inaugural lectures  in which our professors share their expertise. It's always interesting to attend and get an overview of the diverse work we do in ScHARR.

At the end of February, it was the turn of Health Economics Professor Ben van Hout's turn to present on the fascinating subject of 'who shall not live?' His work made us all think about the balance between value of the individual life and rationalise treatment costs in health care to treat as many people as possible and ensure quality of life.

Ben is originally from the Netherlands, where there is a great tradition for all academics to put on their graduation robes to attend inaugural lectures. So here's Professors Stuart Parker, Gail Mountain and Mark Hawley from the RAT group looking very smart and colourful in the robes of the Universities of Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield.

Visiting the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology research group

I’m a PhD student at Western University (in London, Canada) in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and for the last two weeks I’ve been visiting the RAT group at the University of Sheffield to learn more about the use of technologies for managing chronic illness. As a student at Western, I’m part of the Healthy Ageing team in the Ageing, Rehabilitation and Geriatric Care (ARGC) Research Centre with the Lawson Health Research Institute. Some of the research we do uses exercise prescription, behavioural counselling, and self-directed health technologies for remote patient monitoring in an effort to promote healthy living behaviours and prevent or manage disease progression. For the most part, these technologies are relatively simple and accessible devices, such as smartphones and Bluetooth-enabled peripheral devices like blood pressure monitors, glucometers, pedometers, and weigh scales. This research is carried out in rural and urban centres in collaboration with other research teams at Western, and is also part of an international consortium with research teams in Finland.

It’s been great to have this opportunity to visit the University of Sheffield and learn, hands-on, about some of the technologies that are being developed for patient self-management of chronic illness as part of the SMART2 project. I think there are many exciting applications for technologies (like SMART2) to be implemented in health service delivery and improve patient care for chronic disease as well as lifestyle-related conditions (such as stroke rehabilitation, heart failure, diabetes and obesity). And I would even speculate that capitalising on personalised self-management programs like the ones included in the SMART2 will help ease the burden on the health care system and improve quality of care and quality of life for patients living with chronic illness.

Thank you to the RAT group for opening your doors and sharing your insights with me during my visit!

[written by Emily Knight]

Supervised Care and Rehabilitation Involving Personal Tele-robotics: SCRIPT project

The SCRIPT team, including Professor Gail Mountain and Dr. Nasrin Nasr

 The SCRIPT project employs an interdisciplinary research design to examine the potential of robot-mediated technology for the home-based rehabilitation of hand and wrist following stroke. SCRIPT aims to develop an understanding of the users of such technology, their needs and the social and personal context of use through applying a user-centred design approach. Additionally, the usability of such devices will be tested by using participatory design techniques to inform and improve design in an iterative process.

The project is funded partially by the European Commission under the seventh framework programme for research and technological development. It started in November 2012 and will run for 36 months with collaborating partners from the United Kingdom (the University of Sheffield, University of Hertfordshire), Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. The kickoff meeting was hosted by the project coordinator at the University of Hertfordshire. The following meeting was held in Rome hosted by the San Raffaele S.p.A. The SCRIPT partners will be meeting at the Robotics for Neuro-rehabilitation: The COST European Network Conference at the University of Southampton on 19th March.


The University of Sheffield leads the Work Package 1: User-driven system development framework. By applying a mix of social and health services research and User-centred design, people with stroke, their family carers and stroke professionals as the potential users of robotic rehabilitation technology will be consulted during the formative and summative evaluations to test the usability as well as to assess the effectiveness of such devices.

[written by Nasrin Nasr]