Virtual hospital care start-up Doccla, is partnering with Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (NGH) to trial remote smart patient monitoring.

The company is providing virtual wards, built around the use of connected medical wearables in the home, to allow NGH clinicians to remotely monitor the vital signs of recovering COVID-19 patients and those living with chronic illness. 

Doccla was originally chosen by the NHS to lead on a project to demonstrate the feasibility of smart home care. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, NGH has worked with Doccla to develop a remote monitoring system for recovering COVID-19 patients as well as the chronically ill. Patients are equipped with smart devices to wear at home which send information to NGH clinicians to support decision-making.

Doccla uses the wearable devices to allow medical staff to monitor the vital signs of a patient remotely, via a web browser, while the patient is at home. Its virtual wards allow NHS trusts to reduce the number of vulnerable patients required to remain in hospital, increasing capacity.

The breadth of data gathered by the wearables means a patient’s care team will be alerted if their condition deteriorates. 

Chris Pallot, director of strategy and partnerships at NGH said: “We are using Doccla’s solution to add capacity and improve clinical support, while enabling certain patients to stay at home who otherwise may have been admitted. This is one of the approaches that the hospital has taken to address the COVID-19 outbreak”

The objective is to help certain patients to stay at home and, thus, avoid the need to be admitted to hospital unless they experience a deterioration in their condition. All clinical responsibility remains with NGH, with Doccla providing a service that makes it possible to monitor patients remotely.