Digital Technologies to Improve Patient Care

One of the digital technology workshops exploting how to improve patient care

A series of workshops have been held exploring how digital technology can improve patient care.

Professor Sue Mawson and the TaCT team (the Telehealth and Care Technologies (TaCT) theme of NIHR CLAHRC YH) have been working with their industry partners Sensory Technologies, the clinical stroke teams at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, community Active Recovery teams and the Local Authority on a series of stroke survivor workshops exploring e-rehabilitation.

The team has been looking at new models of stroke rehabilitation and palliative care enhanced by the e-shift platform. E-Shift is a technologically supported distributed model of nursing care, developed by Canadian company Sensory Technologies, that allows qualified nurses to support non-qualified staff in delivering home care to a range of patients through mobile and web based interfaces.

Stroke is a substantial and increasing challenge to the health of the UK population and evidence shows that people recover better in their own home after a stroke.

There was an opportunity for those affected by stroke to hear about the exciting new developments and give their input. The team want to use e-rehab to train and support stroke rehabilitation assistants to provide rehabilitation at home, using the supervision of senior therapists using technology, with the aim of providing more sessions per week.

How the E-Shift system works

There was also a live demonstration of the system at St Luke’s Hospice with CATCH’s Dr Paul Taylor, St Luke’s Senior Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine. St Catherine’s Hospice from Preston also attended the demonstration and subsequent discussion.

This is a collaboration between NIHR, St Luke’s, the NHS and industry partners Sensory Technologies to build a stronger stroke e-rehab and end of life research portfolio.

Please contact Professor Sue Mawson for more information about the project.