Two local authorities in Wales have launched a joint home telehealth service to monitor patients with COPD, allowing them to read and hear guidance in Welsh or English.

The partnership between Anglesey and Gwynedd Local Health Boards is expected to deliver more effective patient-centred support in the community.

Initially, 20 dual-language RTX telehealth monitors from Tunstall Healthcare have been installed into COPD patients’ homes, enabling them to record their blood pressure, blood oxygen level and pulse rate.

The system uses health logic questions to examine the patient’s health status. The results are monitored remotely by Anglesey County Council, who liaise with community nurses to support case management.

The RTX monitors can be programmed to run in multiple languages, including Welsh and English. The patient may choose to interact with the monitor in Welsh while clinical and nursing teams can still work in English.

Daily home monitoring with telehealth is expected to ensure support when needed, empower patients to better control their condition, and reduce the number of unplanned hospital admissions.

Rhianwen Jones, Telecare & Community Support Projects Coordinator, said: “Telehealth has provided us with an innovative way to help monitor COPD patients living in rural areas of Wales. On average a district nurse makes 5.6 visits to patients a day; however with the aid of telehealth we hope to raise this to nine patients being monitored by one specialist nurse at a time.”

Matt Marshall, Director of Tunstall Telehealthcare, commented: “Telehealth provides a cost-effective model of care for the management of long-term conditions such as COPD, allowing healthcare providers to do more with less. Trusts that fail to embrace such innovative new care models will inevitably have to make cuts in other areas.”