Home Pod
What it does
The Home Pod provides clinical monitoring of patients in their homes, without expert supervision. It has been designed to benefit both doctors and patients in terms of time-saving monitoring and giving improved confidence. It can assist patients with conditions such as:
Asthma, Heart failure, Diabetes
Chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD)
Hypertension, Depression
Drug & alcohol addiction,
Obesity, Smoking cessation
Congestive heart failure
Information gathered from the patient by the Home Pod is sent by wireless, broadband or telephony to the Telehealth Solutions server, maintained by a third party and behind the NHS firewall, with full back up and hot standby to cater for system failures. Relevant information (which includes alerts that have been decided by the clinician) is transmitted to the nominated carer(s) and posted to the patient’s record at the clinician’s surgery in compliance with the relevant guidelines. No clinical data is stored in the patient’s home.
Each Home Pod is configured by the clinician, or their delegate, according to the needs of an individual patient. This is done from their own PC, using the normal secure log-on procedures. The protocol is easily maintained and changed in a way that ensures there is always an audit trail.
The Home Pod is designed to be installed by a nurse or other carer who also gives the necessary instruction to the patient on the use of the devices attached to the Pod. When communication to the Telehealth Solutions server is by means of wireless communication – which is the most commonly chosen method – then installation only requires access to a mains socket; there is no requirement to route additional phone lines and no requirement for special siting of the equipment. At the time of installation, the Pod is authenticated to the patient and each time the Pod is used, an additional check is made to verify that the correct person is using it.
Benefits to the Health and Social Services (click here)
Benefits to the Patient (click here)
