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Bluetooth tech runs health aid

Lauren Pattemore

A Timaru woman is happy to be one of the first people in New Zealand to trial a new Bluetooth device which allows remote healthcare monitoring.

Janet Steven has been wearing the 85mm long, 35mm wide BioSticker device, attached to her body with double-sided medical grade adhesive tape, for the past month with the knowledge it tracks a range of her bodily functions.

She was the first in South Canterbury to receive the device and has been joined by 10 others from the region in the trial that also includes 50 patients in South Auckland, including Covid-19 positive patients, as well as other remote patients.

Steven said she felt more supported now that she has one.

Her best friend, Joy Sylvia, explained Steven had an incident a week ago where ‘‘she really wasn’t feeling very well’’.

‘‘Julian, who is the nurse in charge, rang and asked, ‘are you OK Janet?’ and Janet felt really valued.

‘‘She felt really positive about the fact that, yes she had not been feeling well, it was something reasonably serious, and it had been monitored,’’ Sylvia said.

Steven said it was reassuring having someone else monitoring her health in that instance. ‘‘They picked it up and rang me.’’

Steven said she previously felt warmer in body temperature than those around her and wondered what the cause was.

‘‘I keep on thinking, you know why am I the only one that is taking my clothes off and no-one else is? Sometimes you don’t know if it is actually happening . . . especially with temperature – that is one of the first signs.’’

Libya Foote, who has been trialling the unit for a week, also found it reassuring ‘‘someone else is watching as well’’.

Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand South Canterbury project sponsor for remote patient monitoring Ruth Kibble said BioSticker tracked a patient’s bodily functions and, via Bluetooth, sent this information to the hospital.

Data recorded includes skin temperature, heart rate at rest, respiratory rate at rest, activity levels ‘‘how active the person is during the day’’, sleep, body position, degree of incline while sleeping ‘‘how flat they are when sleeping, if people start sitting up it is usually a sign they have got some breathing or heart issues’’, Kibble said.

She said they could ‘‘look at the data and make a call from the hospital’’ about what level of care each patient needed that day.

‘‘We know there are shortages in the workforce, and so it is about where do we focus today with the workforce that we have got.’’

Kibble said the device ‘‘can help prevent people turning up to the emergency department because they think they are unwell when they are not unwell, or we can get care earlier’’, allowing for a more efficient system.

Kibble said they started looking at what devices they could use for remote care patients about 18 months ago and had received $500,000 funding from the Ministry of Health for the trial.

Health Minister Andrew Little was in Timaru yesterday to hear how the trial was going and thought ‘‘it was looking really positive so far’’.

‘‘We know in rural areas and with rural health, there have been some challenges, often getting staff out or people getting access to health services.

‘‘Being able to be monitored remotely through a remote patient monitoring system like this really reduces a lot of the challenges and problems we have with rural health.

‘‘It has therapeutic benefits too, it gets them out of the hospital environment, so the hospital can focus on the really unwell people,’’ Little said.

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2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281487870128774

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