TANN: Scotland

Telemedecine – Centre for Rural Health

Cathy Stephenson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:07:00 +0000

News of a Scottish lead in a European funded project:

The Centre for Rural Health will lead a Northern Periphery Programme (NPP) strategic project entitled ”Implementing Transnational Telemedicine Solutions” (ITTS). The project includes partners from 6 northern European countries; Scotland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is worth a total of €2.3M and will be running until December 2013. The project will implement transnational telemedicine solutions, at scale, and in a sustainable manner, into everyday practice across the Northern Periphery. The Centre for Rural Health Newsletter provides more information here (page 2).

Taking the lead?

Cathy Stephenson — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:11:54 +0000

On the main site there was a recent report that The Royal Family were not adopting Telecare for their elders; however, according to this report in The Courier technology is on the Royal agenda in the shape of iPad. A researcher at the University of Dundee is encouraging older people to engage with technology, based on his research over the past 10 years.

Telecare Supports Carers

Cathy Stephenson — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:18:20 +0000

iriss Insights 08 is a document underlining the benefits of telecare to unpaid carers and can be found at this link iriss_insight8_telecare.

Confirmed Investment in Health Technology

Cathy Stephenson — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:28:17 +0000

At last years Holyrood organised conference on Telecare and Telehealth one of the keynotes addressed the concerns that patients may have about privacy of their data. This week the Scottish government has awarded a £1.1m contract for privacy breach protection software to Northgate Managed Services, for use by all health boards in the country.

The news has been reported in several locations but here is The Guardian article.

Protesting Council Community Alarm Price Rises

Cathy Stephenson — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:59:07 +0000

Unhappy Angus residents are angered by the Council’s Community Alarm price increase reported here in The Courier. The report does not clarify whether the anger is truly about the cost or whether it is about lack of community engagement from the Council before imposing the increase; however this is the second report on the matter, with Third Sector organisations adding their support to statements made by a citizen earlier this week.

We do not get a particularly objective view from the report about the value and benefits, or otherwise, of the services in question, although Angus Council does add a statement to allay the fears of those who may find the cost increase difficult. With recent reported protests about perceived cuts to services for disabled people in West Scotland and with the likelihood of more cuts and savings on the way we are likely to see more of this sort of report … they do say that “there is no such thing as bad publicity” What do you all think?

Shifting the Balance of Care in the Isles

Cathy Stephenson — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:34:00 +0000

After a very quiet few weeks during the electioneering and as we wait for all the news that will spill out of today’s vote here is a report from the Shetland times about confirmed funding under “Shifting the Balance of Care” to build on existing services, supporting people at home and including use of telecare in the Isles.

Tortoise speed Telecare?

Cathy Stephenson — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:51:38 +0000

No the tortoise analogy is not to progress in the Scottish telecare sector but to the almost non existent relevant news … I figure you can all see the electioneering and it really isn’t news is it? But I did catch sight of the first report I have seen confirming telecare inclusion in successful change fund bids – please if you know your partnership change fund has been confirmed and reported let me have the link so we can share. In the meantime this is from Renfrewshire.

Scot’s advice to English Telehealth

Cathy Stephenson — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:58:34 +0000

Dr James Ferguson (lead clinician at the Scottish Centre for Telehealth) shares his view as to the slower adoption of telehealth south of the border in this Guardian article. Although the focus of the article is on telemedicine I did find myself in sympathy with much of what James offers and this in particular “We should actually be using this technology a whole lot more cleverly to support people before they get ill, and when they do get ill, select the patients that actually need the resource and reassure the ones that don’t that they’re okay. It’s not a difficult concept, but it’s a really difficult one to get people to change their behaviour.”

Social media engagement to improve assistive technologies

Cathy Stephenson — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:37:02 +0000

Now here is an interesting take on how to engage with the people who can benefit most from well designed assistive technologies and get them involved in the design itself. Blackwood Foundation has won lottery funding to use purpose developed Social Media to connect innovators and disabled people in a novel way.

Heartwarming take on “Care home”

Cathy Stephenson — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:04:43 +0000

With no apologies for the lack of Telecare, I wanted to share this article -a good example of “community”, “care”, “befriending” … enjoy. Well done Drummond Community High School for establishing these valuable connections.