The potential of telehealth in managing diabetes care “closer to home“
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Shifting diabetes management closer to patients’ homes: Creating a frame of knowledge for an effective implementation of out-of-hospital care using telehealth.
IRAS ID
101107
Contact name
Yannis Pappas
Contact email
Research summary
Bringing “Care closer to home” is not a new concept. UK health service has as far back as in 2000 intended to redesign health service around the patient. It is with the aims of improving access and convenience for patients and supporting “self-management” so that patients can be independent at home. In addition, increasing capacity for self-management, may reduce the high demands for hospital care in response to an ageing population and a rise in chronic disease. Telehealth may be a facilitator of self-management and care closer to home. The introduction of telehealth dates back to 1950s and has since slowly rolled out worldwide. However, to date, there is yet little evidence to demonstrate the level of overall success and perceptions of using telehealth to support patients with chronic disease.
This research will explore the perceived patient and healthcare professional satisfaction with, as well as benefit from the use of telehealth in managing chronic disease. The disease area of interest in this research is diabetes. Diabetes makes a suitable example of chronic disease due to its high and increasing prevalence and number of co-morbidities.
Interviews will be carried out in East London (Newham) with people using telehealth in diabetes management. All interviews will be guided by topic guides addressing the study aims. Interviews will be analysed qualitatively.
The results will increase our understanding of patient and healthcare professional acceptability of telehealth and help create a framework of knowledge to inform process change and policy making for an effecting implementation of care closer to home for patients with diabetes using telehealth.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0777
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jun 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion