NHS to start using health apps to help patients manage conditions from home

There set be two new medical apps that help patients monitor their health at home thus reducing their need to visit a doctor and over time saving the NHS money. These apps are set to be rolled out to across a few trusts over time.

One system, called GDm-health, helps manage the treatment of gestational diabetes. The smartphone app lets people send each blood glucose reading, that they take at home, to their diabetes clinician. This technology enables patients to go home and then safely monitor their condition as well as being well connected back to the hospital.

The second app is for managing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition that is known to affect around 1.5 million people in the UK. Patients with COPD use a device to measure their heart rate and blood oxygen saturation every day which they then enter the results into an app. After three months of measurements, the app learns to recognise a patient’s range of normal oxygen saturation levels. If the measurements fall below that range, then an alert is sent to the clinicians.

These apps would help the NHS profusely as it would enable patients to manage their conditions by themselves without having to go to the clinic as often which in turn helps the NHS save money in the long run.