COVID19 Virtual Family Visiting and Communication with the ICU Team [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Innovative Virtual Family Visiting and Communication with the Intensive Care Team During COVID19: a multiple methods observational study
IRAS ID
285327
Contact name
Louise Rose
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 10 days
Research summary
During the COVID19 pandemic, family members are unable to visit their loved ones in intensive care because of the infection risk to themselves, and to clinical staff. This can be extremely distressing, and there are frequent instances of families not being able to be with their loved one requiring support from a breathing machine during critical illness. This is even more obvious and becomes tragic at the end of life.
In response to this tragic situation, the Life Lines team developed a bespoke solution that provides gifted electronic tablets with 4G data and a communication App called aTouchaway to ICUs in 150 NHS hospitals across the UK. The tablets are used to enable secure video calls between the ICU team and ICU family enabling families to have a virtual visit with their loved one, and in some cases the chance to say good bye.
In this proposed project we want to understand how intensive care teams have communicated with family in general. In particular, we want to learn how Life Lines virtual visiting is being used i.e. how many times for individual patients, and how many times by individual ICUs across the four nations. We also want to explore the experience of communication in general and Life Lines virtual visiting from the perspective of family members, from ICU nurses and other members of the ICU team. Finally we want to understand any problems using Life Lines virtual visiting, as well as strategies that made using it easier to use. By doing this, we will get important information as to how to help family and ICU teams use Life Lines virtual family visiting better and also will provide important information to tell us if we should be using Life Lines for virtual family visiting once the COVID19 pandemic subsides.
REC name
South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/SW/0147
Date of REC Opinion
18 Nov 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion