Video conferencing to help care services reach the community

(Last Updated On: February 18, 2019)

After extensive research by the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s Innovation Team, ‘Visimeet’ was selected as the software of choice to as it met all the needs of the organisation, including ensuring patient confidentiality.

Following on from this work, the team has been pushing the innovation further to develop the use of video assessments between Totnes Hospital and local care homes, in a bid to reduce delays in assessments for patients waiting to leave hospital. It is hoped this will help patients leave hospital sooner, and continue their recovery in a more homely setting. It also saves care home staff unnecessary visits to the hospital, and enables them to spend more time with the people in their care.

Alongside this, the team are also developing 360 degree videos of care homes to provide better insight and preparation for patients & families, if they are unable to visit prior to leaving hospital.

John Deans, Audio Visual and Video Conferencing Manager for the Trust said:
“Video-conferencing is a commonly used tool in the business world, facilitating meetings across different sites. We are now making great use of it to help improve the way we deliver health and care in local communities. We are using the technology to bring together patients and health professionals without the need for travel time or expense, and to improve people’s experience and well-being during their transition of care from hospital to a care home.”

Since the successful implementation of ‘Visimeet’, the Innovation Team have worked to install dedicated spaces for meetings to be held via video-conferencing across most Trust sites with the goal of all sites being connected.

Darren Woodall, Innovation Lead at the Trust commented:
“The aim of the Innovation team is to offer a dedicated arena for the generation of new ways of working and the opportunity to create new environments to deliver better patient care. The use of video-conferencing software for multiple functions throughout the Trust including how the Moor to Sea team have utilised it, shows how innovation can lead to smoother processes and more integration between services. This idea of process re-design is available to all teams throughout the Trust and we welcome any and all suggestions.”

The Trust is now looking at ways in which it can use this across the organisation and how it can share its experiences and innovations with other NHS Trusts.