Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare

Glasgow, UK

The Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare (NHS24) is headquartered in Glasgow's suburb Cardonald. It is the center of operations for a national provider of telehealth services. There are four regional centers strategically positioned all over Scotland: Clydebank and Cardonald on the west shore, and in Aberdeen and South Queensferry in Edinburg.

NO FILMING AFTER THIS POINT

I have had a three hours discussion with John Turner, the CEO, and George Crooks, the CMO, followed by a two-hour tour through the facilities on a service-by-service basis. The meeting was exploratory of the political and societal context that allows for advanced telehealth services. It was an open and informative conversation, without withholding anything, as people running the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare are not afraid of sharing knowledge. They enjoy almost a monopoly position and a tight collaboration with the Scottish Government (a Government service/agency), which allows for such an elaborate scheme.

Then the visit to the 'floor' ensued, from 18-20h. I stress the time because the NHS 24 major services start from 18h when GPs around Scotland finis for a day. The catalyst in the development of NHS 24 was legislation (back in 2006, if I remember right) that freed the GPs from the 24/7 responsibility for patients. This legislation created a gap that NHS 24 was able to successfully fill up. At that point, the NHS 24 was badly run and provided mediocre services, which echoed in unfavorable media coverage. After three years, when John was installed as the CEO, things improved dramatically, and the positive media coverage soared.

The first service of the NHS 24 was a call center service installed by BT. Building on the success of the telephonic services, NHS 24 now moves in the area of digital services (TV, smartphone apps, websites, etc.). It is remarkably well integrated with other Governmental agencies and services. For instance, there is no EHR in Scotland, but the NHS 24 staff has access to different electronic databases that they use to track patients and their utilization of health/social services. The flow looks like this: a patient calls, and staff identifies the patient by asking a simple set of questions. Then the patient/citizen will pose a question that could be answered right away by a staff member (nurse specialist) or, if necessary, transferred to a clinician on duty (employed by NHS 24) sitting anywhere in those four regional centers. They can see the data from GP registers, hospital registers, and pharmacy registers. They can also redirect calls or refer patients to different instances in the Scottish NHS. They can also ask for a refill of medicines.

CALEDONIA HOUSE HOSTS NATIONAL TELEHEALTH AND EMERGENCY SERVICES

In a nutshell - the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare is as advanced as we would wish a telehealth service provider to be in any given country. It is probably the most advanced telehealth ecosystem in the World. Soon, they will start collaborating with the European Commission to disseminate best practices and tap into that sweet, sweet pool of money ;)