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Chapter 8 • Assisted Living 247

but should complement existing healthcare where face-to-face interaction does not make
social, clinical or economic sense (RCN, 2012).
9
The Telecare Services Association defines telehealth as ‘Telehealth is the remote
exchange of data between a patient at home and their clinician(s) to assist in diagnosis
and monitoring typically used to support patients with Long Term Conditions.’
Telehealth differs from telecare as it focuses on maintaining health and supporting
people with long-term conditions. Telehealth devices are usually connected to the inter-
net to receive updates and send and receive information. Traditional telehealth units con-
sist of a base unit that provides an interactive series of questions for the user and a digital
readout of what is being measured.
A useful feature of most traditional telehealth systems is the fact that the readings taken
by the users can be sent to professionals for analysis and suggestions on how the user’s
lifestyle could be altered to improve their health. In this way the person has a level of con-
trol over their own lives and their own medical condition.
An important feature of both telecare and telehealth is that they have been used to save
money and free up people time. Thus a person who has telecare might no longer require
support during the day or night as they can call for assistance using telecare if they are in
difficulties. Likewise, with telehealth technology the person can control their condition
through regular monitoring and this should keep hospital visits down and warn the user
when their lifestyle or medication is required to be changed to bring their condition under
control.
Again the WSDAN project was inconclusive about the benefits of telehealth devices but
recognised that they are useful and beneficial to many people with long-term conditions.
The benefits of telehealth over telecare are more obvious as there are direct savings on
hospital/doctor times and also the time taken for a person to travel to and from the doctor
as the information is sent to specialists who provide medical information to the user to
avert crises.
Telehealth devices provide a method for people to take control over their condition and
monitor how their lifestyle can affect their health conditions. Conversely, for people who
are hypochondriacs, telehealth can potentially exacerbate their condition and make them
overconscious of the minor fluctuations in their condition.
The WSDAN project also noted a number difficulties with the use of telehealth in a
multicultural society, which include issues of translating instructions into a range of lan-
guages so that people could understand, ensuring that the instructions were clear and
unequivocal (Foster et al., 2015). Sanders et al. (2012) found that people were reluctant to
use telehealth and telecare because of the following reasons:

Requirements for technical competence and operation of equipment; threats to identity,
independence and self-care; expectations and experiences of disruption to services.
Respondents held concerns that special skills were needed to operate equipment but

9 www.telecare.org.uk/consumer-services/what-is-telehealth.