Innovative project changing the lives of heart failure patients
The ‘Seamless User-Centred Proactive Provision of Risk-stratified Treatment for Heart Failure’ (SUPPORT-HF) project, now in its second stage of development, has proved a great success among trial participants.
Current treatment methods in the United Kingdom require patients to frequently visit the hospital and their local GP for regular check-ups, an often laborious process.
The SUPPORT-HF application allows heart failure patients to monitor their progress from the comfort of their own home by recording their blood pressure, weight and symptoms.
For Felicity Emptage, a heart failure patient and participant in the SUPPORT-HF project, the innovative program has dramatically changed her life.
“Now I’m using the HF 2 device, it really frees me up brilliantly because I know I’m being monitored and being looked after. It’s peace of mind really.”
“I hope that the people who finance this thing are listening, because it is absolute gold dust and has given me my life back.”
The George Institute for Global Health and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford developed the program to address issues of provision of care for patients with chronic heart failure outside of hospitals and the local GP in the United Kingdom.
If the system is an overall success, it will reduce the cost to the health service of un-predicted hospitalisations and help patients better manage their conditions at home.
Study Lead, Professor Kazem Rahimi of The George Institute for Global Health UK said the current models of health care delivery don’t focus enough on the time patients spend in the community.
“There is a small amount of time that patients spend in hospital and then they tend to be out there on their own.”
“This project is about supporting patients with heart failure, to manage their own condition at home.”
The data collected from patients is then communicated to researchers who can identify patterns that might predict which patients are going to need hospitalisation enabling them to intervene earlier in a more informed fashion.
“We use the information provided by the program to proactively monitor those people minimising the risk of needing to go back to hospital.”
To find out more about the SUPPORT-HF app and Felicity’s story, click here.
