News

Dozens of pilot programmes that seek to use new technology to improve the remote monitoring of a variety of health conditions, are being rolled-out across the region by the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN.

Thanks to funding from NHSx, we’ve been working closely with the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, South Yorkshire & Bassetlaw Integrated Care System (ICS) and Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership, to support the spread and uptake of the TytoCare digital health solution.

The wireless handheld device allows patients and their families to perform medical examinations anytime, anywhere for the ear, throat, lungs, heart, temperature, skin and abdomen. These examinations can be online, live with a medical professional or can be recorded by the patient, parent or carer and uploaded to a secure platform for review by clinical teams.

It can be used to diagnose a range of acute conditions such as colds, flu, ear infections, bronchitis and sore throats and can also be used to manage chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), high blood pressure, asthma, congestive heart failure and diabetes.

There are two versions of the device: TytoHome™ is for use in a patient’s home and TytoPro™ is designed for use by professionals in a clinical or community setting.

The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN advocated for TytoCare’s device to be included in NHSx’s Joined Up Care Programme after seeing its potential during a pilot project in summer 2020 with the paediatric department at Bradford Teaching Hospitals.

Now, we are supporting the roll-out of the product as part of 26 projects across 14 sites within the region, supporting a variety of care settings ranging from children’s hospitals and emergency departments to care homes and GP practices.

Dedi Gilad, CEO and Co-Founder of TytoCare, said: “We are honoured that the NHS has chosen to implement our telehealth solution across NHS trusts. TytoCare’s solutions deliver convenient and accessible healthcare without compromising quality, all from the comfort of home. We look forward to continuing our work with the NHS to expand its incredible telehealth programs across the UK.”

Ellen Barnes, programme manager at the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, said: “We’re thrilled to provide the TytoCare solution to 14 different trusts, across 26 projects, ensuring patients are getting the best possible care digitally and reducing the need for hospital admissions.

“We look forward to continuing our journey of digital innovation with TytoCare, providing all patients, from babies to the elderly, with comprehensive virtual care, as well as giving clinicians the tools needed to properly care for, diagnose, and treat patients remotely.”

Below is a list of the current live pilot sites. This will be updated as more pilot projects are launched.

Affinity Care (South) Primary Care Network, Bradford: Healthcare professionals working in its Home Visiting Hub are using the TytoPro™ device to conduct enhanced clinical observations and high quality virtual consultations between GPs and house-bound patients.

Leeds Children’s Hospital: The cleft lip and palate service are trialling the TytoPro™ device with babies and their families. Usually, parents have to travel to see a surgeon face to face in order for them to see inside the child’s mouth and agree surgical options. But thanks to this new technology, the need for travel is dramatically reduced and a nurse can visit the baby at home, capture high-quality images and send them directly to the surgeon who can review and plan surgical care options.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust: Clinicians are using the devices for its Home Ventilation Virtual Clinic to undertake physical checks during community visits as well as facilitate online remote consultations and examinations. The Hospital also plans to deploy the TytoCare devices to its Paediatric Palliative Care Team so that more children and families can benefit from enhanced virtual support at home and avoid travel to and from the hospital.

Hear what the team at Sheffield Children’s Hospital had to say about their experience of using the TytoCare device. 

Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust:
Chronic respiratory team: The paediatric team will be trialling the TytoHome device on children with chronic respiratory conditions. The device will be used by patients and their families in their own homes, providing early interventions when needed and reducing the need for emergency care.

Emergency Department: Piloting the Pro device in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary’s (HRI) emergency department, the technology is providing staff with virtual consultation capabilities with consultants who cannot be present on the ward. The high-quality video conferencing platform enables the ED consultant to see and talk to the patient and staff member, whilst guiding and viewing the examinations captured by the device. The solution can also be used in offline mode, where examinations are captured and sent for a review by an ED consultant at a later point.

Paediatric Cross-Site project: This project will enable the paediatric nurse practitioner, based at HRI to use the Tytocare device to obtain clinical advice from consultants at Calderdale Royal Hospital, without the need to send patients over in person.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:  

Elderly Medicine Virtual Hub: The Hub is staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of Geriatricians, Advance Clinical Practitioners (ACPs) and other clinical staff such as nurses, therapists and pharmacists.  Clinical team members go to patients’ homes to support them to either avoid a hospital admission or following 24 hours on the Care of the Elderly (COE) unit in Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI).  The virtual consultation and examination capabilities the Pro device could reduce some attendances at hospital for the patient, improve patient experience and free up clinical time for the hub team to care for more patients.

The Ambulatory Care Experience (ACE) Service: The Service is a children’s acute community care service led by a multi-disciplinary team of nurses, Advanced Nurse Practitioners and consultants. Clinical team members go to patients’ homes to support children with various conditions to avoid hospital admissions or re-admissions, improve patient experience and ease pressures on staff. It will also provide additional support and development for the clinicians in the patient’s home, giving them confidence that they can access rapid virtual review from senior clinical teams when they need it.

Paediatric Chronic Respiratory: Following the inaugural pilot of the TytoCare device in summer 2020, further NHSx funding supported the extension of the TytoHome device pilot. This enabled the department to continue care for the 17 children with respiratory conditions who participated in the initial trial.

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust:

Care homes: As part of the Airedale care homes project, three care homes are now using the TytoHome device allowing GPs to provide virtual support to residents when they need it. An additional seven care homes are due to follow soon.

Airedale Digital Hub: Care homes involved with the Airedale Care Homes TytoCare Pilot will now be able to use their Tyto Pro devices to carry out consultations with the Digital Care Hub team 24 hours per day, seven days per week as well as consultations with their GPs during working hours.

Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust: In the programme’s first and only combined TytoPro and TytoHome pilot, the Trust’s paediatric respiratory services will be working with respiratory and asthma patients to record examinations using the TytoHome device when they have an acute episode, in addition to patients receiving treatment via their GP and/or A&E. The results will then be used as additional clinical evidence for clinical teams to review at the next review, improving ongoing and future treatment care management plans and patient experience. The Trust estimates this will benefit approximately 80 patients over 12 months.

North Lincolnshire & Goole (NLAG) NHS Foundation Trust: There are two trials with NLAG; Paediatric Complex Needs Patient@Home and Paediatric Hospital@Home.
Patients@Home – families will be provided with a TytoHome device to enable virtual consultations and remote examinations with the paediatric clinical team, avoiding hospital visits, reducing hospital admissions, and travelling for clinical teams or families.
Hospital@Home – is a new service for the Trust to manage paediatric emergency referrals.  The service was launched on 22 November and TytoPro devices will enable community teams to obtain senior clinical support remotely.

Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group and Kirklees Council: The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN has been working with Kirklees CCG and the council to implement Tytocare into a number of care homes in the region, the first care home now live. Digital remote monitoring helps to improve the process of communicating key information on the health and wellbeing of care home residents and helps to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, allowing for more residents to be cared for in their own, familiar environments. Care home staff are able to utilise the secure portal to refer patient details to a GP who can review, triage and refer the resident appropriately and effectively.
Dawn Greaves, Digital Programme Manager for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, said: “This is an excellent achievement for Kirklees and will make a real impact to the residents.  We are keen to see this progress across the region.”

City Healthcare Partnership (CHCP): The CHCP Frailty Team provides urgent community response across the Humber and North Yorkshire ICS region and are using the TytoPro devices to enable frontline support workers to examine a patient within the community. Using the product enables the team to liaise with clinicians back in the central hub to seek advice and support with decision-making where necessary.