Community nursing and occupational therapy is a critical part of healthcare delivery and in many cases an effective alternative to hospital care since it is patient-centred and cost-effective. Community nursing provides continuity of care following hospital discharge.
Challenges for community nursing and home care
While community nursing has enormous advantages, it can bring some challenges* such as
- Difficult patient situation/environment factors
- Level of community nursing experience
- Sense of isolation or uncertainty for community nurse
- Need for extra guidance in certain cases
Support for healthcare professionals on the move
Community nurses and occupational therapists attending the elderly/ frail/immobile patients in their homes, may require additional support, usually from a family doctor/GP or more experienced healthcare professional. The community nurse who is proficient in primary care, can lack the medical expertise to treat a patient or decide a further course of action without medical input. Here, patient hospitalisation remains the only option – this delays treatment, affects patient outcome and places further load on hospitals.
Wearable Video Telemedicine to support community healthcare
BlueEye Handsfree addresses community healthcare challenges by equipping nurses with a mobile wearable video platform. The nurse wears a lightweight camera near their temple, which sends real-time video of ‘What the nurse sees’to the remote location(s). The remote medical expert can conveniently access the real-time video by simply logging in to the BlueEye hot desk from their current place of work (home/ hospital/in-transit).
The wearable video platform facilitates one-way video from the nurse to the remote doctor or supervisor allowing the nurse to focus on the patient treatment. The wearable camera near the nurse eyes allows the remote doctor/ supervisor to see the patient treatment from the nurse’s eyes. The two-way audio supports effective collaboration between the nurse and the doctor/ supervisor.
Key impact, benefits and outcomes of wearable video for healthcare professionals on the move
Point-of-view video enables the medical expert to see the patient from the nurse’s eyes with the following results:
- Enables instantaneous support for community nurse/occupational therapist
- Accelerates patient diagnosis and treatment
- Supports treat at scene, avoiding unnecessary conveyance
- Facilitates timely escalation to Ambulance service/Emergency hospital admission
- Sense of support and reduced stress for community nurse
- Leads to improved patient outcome
- Enhances healthcare delivery operational efficiency
*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6456761/
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