Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Observational Study
. 2019 Dec;26(1):e100079.
doi: 10.1136/bmjhci-2019-100079.

Patient and carer survey of remote vital sign telemonitoring for self-management of long-term conditions

Julie-Ann Walkden  1 , Paul Joseph McCullagh  2 , W George Kernohan  3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Patient and carer survey of remote vital sign telemonitoring for self-management of long-term conditions

Julie-Ann Walkden et al. BMJ Health Care Inform. 2019 Dec.

Abstract

Background: Home-based self-monitoring has failed to show intended savings to healthcare budgets yet it continues to emerge and gain popularity.

Objective: We set out to verify stakeholders' perspectives of remote vital sign telemonitoring.

Design: An observational design was adopted by devising a survey for distribution to service users and their informal carers.

Sample: Service users in South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust were included. A total of 274 questionnaires were issued. Data from 97 patients (35% response rate) and 49 carers were analysed. Of these, 81 patients and 48 of their carers experienced a monitoring service known as TF3 and 16 patients and 1 carer experienced a service known as U-Tell. The cohorts comprised people living with a number of long-term conditions: diabetes, hypertension after stroke, chronic heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, bronchiectasis and those requiring anticoagulation using warfarin.

Results: Analysis showed that respondents were supportive of the technology with 90.7% of patients agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement: the remote monitoring system assisted me in managing my health on a day-to-day basis. The patients liked the technology largely because it provided empowerment and control for self-management and allowed them to continue with their lives without major disruption. These views were independent of the technology used and not associated with the patient's long-term conditions, gender or age. There were no reported adverse incidents.

Conclusion: As self-monitoring becomes more relevant to healthcare delivery, the technology will be accepted by many in the population with long-term conditions.

Keywords: BMJ Health Informatics; healthcare.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Histogram to demonstrate frequency of responses versus score for patient responses to the question: ‘Has helped me manage my own condition and become involved in my healthcare’.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO Global action plan for prevention and control of noncommunicable disease 2013-2020. World Health organisation, 2013. Available: https://www.who.int/nmh/events/ncd_action_plan/en/ [Accessed Oct 2019].
    1. GOLD Global strategy for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (updated 2014). global initiative for chronic obstructive lung disease, 2014. Available: www.goldcopd.org [Accessed Oct 2019]. - PubMed
    1. Currell R, Urquhart C, Wainwright P, et al. . Telemedicine versus face to face patient care: effect on professional practice and health care outcomes (review). The Cochrane Collaboration 2010. - PubMed
    1. McClean S, Nurmatov U, Lui JLY, et al. . Telecare for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (review). The Cochrane collaboration and published in the Cochrane library 2011, issue 7. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2011.
    1. Steventon A, Bardsley M. The impact of telehealth on the use of hospital care and mortality (summary). Nuffield trust, 2012. Available: http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/sites/files/nuffield/publication/120622_... [Accessed Oct 2019].

Publication types