Diabetes Remote MonitoringRemote monitoring for diabetes patients living in residential care homes
The challenge
Health Call has developed a range of solutions to digitise communication and remote monitoring solutions between residential care homes and NHS services. The latest addition to the Digital Care Home product range enables senior carers to take Blood Glucose Monitoring Readings (BMs) and submit them directly to NHS teams.
This solution supports a new way of working for senior carers in care homes. They take on the responsibility of administrating insulin in patients identified as appropriate by district nurses. It means that senior carers can work closely with the district nurses to safely manage the needs of these residents.
How it works
Care home residents identified by the district nurses as being appropriate for senior carers to administer insulin are added onto the diabetes remote monitoring pathway. When the district nurses start the pathway, they set upper and lower parameters for the BMs.
Once the pathway has started, the senior carers take the resident’s BM and records the results in the Health Call Digital Care Home app. If any of the readings are outside of the parameters, a message advises them to contact the district nurses for advice. The BMs are automatically uploaded into the patient’s electronic patient record and therefore accessible to healthcare staff who are involved in the resident’s care.
The blood glucose reading can be entered into the system at any time, so it is flexible to the resident’s insulin regime or if they are unwell.
Benefits
- Provides confidence for the care home staff and clinicians that residents are receiving safe care
- Reduced need for duplicate data entry and therefore minimises any potential for errors
- Data available for all appropriate clinicians as it is pulled into their electronic patient record
- Makes communication between care homes and NHS teams more efficient
- Full audit trail of BMs recorded by care home staff