How Polycom video conferencing enables home treatment for NHS Lancashire dialysis patients

Scott Rayner, renal IT manager at Royal Preston Hospital, tells Computing how Polycom is helping to provide better care to patients

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has improved care for patients by harnessing video conferencing technology from Polycom, to allow those who require kidney dialysis to be treated in the comfort of their own home.

The technology is useful to patients, Scott Rayner, renal IT manager at Royal Preston Hospital told Computing, because video conferencing enables patients to receive treatment without needing to travel long distances in what is a sparsely populated area of the UK.

"There are a lot of rural locations all around Lancashire. A lot of our patients live in these places and it's quite difficult for them to travel to the hospitals," he explained.

However, with the use of Polycom video conferencing, the process becomes much more convenient for the patient. Not only can they go through the dialysis process at home, but there's a nurse on the other end of the line to provide advice.

"The procedure is very invasive and having the comfort of a nurse at the end of a screen is a massive aid to the patients if they need help or advice," said Rayner, who described how video conferencing is more efficient than using a telephone.

"If they're struggling it can be quite scary, but the interactive nurse being able to calm them down, tell them what to do, it's much more beneficial than trying to use a telephone while having a machine plugged into your arm at the same time," he said.

"Having the ability to speak to the nurse when there's a bit of confusion or something's out of routine, it's obviously very beneficial," Rayner added.

The system uses a rotating PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) camera and a high-definition screen at the patient's home. Rayner told Computing that the video quality is far superior to some of the more commercial options on the market.

"The detail we get means the nurse can see the patient's monitor screen, the lines into the patient's body. It's much more graphically superior, the details are a lot better using Polycom's more mainstream products."

The Trust deployed the technology about a year ago, after first training staff and patients in how to use it.

"The patients get training at the hospital on how to use it. It's not going to be another thing to add to the scary idea of going on dialysis," he said.

"What we've found is they've not been resistant to it. They've already got a machine in the bedroom with lots of cables, so the TV and camera in there doesn't stick out like a sore thumb," Rayner continued.

The real benefit is that patients are no longer required to travel to hospital at a specific time for treatment, so their lives have been made simpler.

"They're in the comfort of their own home and this is the difference really," Rayner told Computing.

"They can choose when they go on dialysis, rather than being given a time slot at the hospital. For a lot of younger people, they can carry on working and have a normal life," he said.

With patients using dialysis machines in their own homes, there is the possibility that things can go wrong, but Rayner described how, with his own eyes, he's seen how the high quality image of the Polycom solution enables nurses to guide patients in the event of an error.

"A patient went on dialysis and his line popped out. So there was a lot of blood, but the nurse calmed him down, took him through what he needed to do and got him back on dialysis for the rest of the session," he said.

"It was quite amazing seeing how the patient calmed down and how all this information was given over video link," he concluded.