Making a telehealth upgrade a reality

Physiotherapist Raguraman Padmanabhan is described by colleagues as a pioneer in how he’s overseen the rollout of a telehealth system

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Raguraman Padmanabhan is a clinical and operation lead at East London NHS Trust

‘He’s driven it through with a lot of enthusiasm and passion,’ said one.

My trust is committed to facilitating integrated care and accessing best practice evidence-based technology to support patients to self-manage their long term condition – that include diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure and hypertension – using telehealth. 

The service facilitates remote monitoring of vital signs where patients can send the readings electronically from the comfort of their own homes.

I’m based at the East Ham community care centre and I lead the clinical team creating effective telehealth pathways to encourage self-management and education, thereby enhancing personalised care plans.

Being a physiotherapist in a clinical leadership role with advanced physical assessment skills and working closely with other professionals allows me to take a holistic approach and put in interventions in a timely manner. 

From an operational perspective it has enabled me to establish strong links with  GPs, CCGs and other key stakeholders and an opportunity to influence the whole system.

From local evaluation of outcomes, it has proven to have a significant and positive effect on patients as they are given the opportunity to experience the benefits of supported self-management and receive ongoing support from a range of integrated services.

I’ve also had the opportunity to co-lead a project REFRAME, using mobile technology for health management for patients with severe mental illness, a feasibility randomised controlled trial vitally supported by the Health Foundation. 

It was the first time being tested in a controlled trial for people with a severe mental health condition. The intervention utilised the anticipated benefits of a simple texting system called Florence for service user’s treatment adherence/therapeutic engagement. 

This was an innovative protocol that enables service users to develop and monitor their individually agreed own wellbeing scores in collaboration with the clinicians. 

This was used to foster service user-clinician communication outside routine appointments. 

  • Raguraman Padmanabhan is a clinical and operation lead at East London NHS Trust

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