By Evelyn Ring
Home-monitoring technology is saving hundreds of hospital bed days during the Covid-19 crisis.
More than 250 patients with the coronavirus have been discharged from hospital using an app developed for the HSE by an Irish digital healthcare company.
The patients, who have less severe Covid-19 symptoms but need to remain in self-isolation, can continue to have their symptoms and vital signs monitored using the technology.
The app, developed by patientMpower based in Dublin’s Digital Hub and prescribed by a healthcare professional, can measure oxygen saturation — a marker of how well someone’s lungs are working
The information is immediately available for healthcare staff to view via a secure portal in the hospital and, if necessary, the patient can be brought back into hospital for treatment.
Head of digital transformation at the HSE, Martin Curley, said the technology has a massive role to play in the crisis.
Chief executive of patientMpower, Eamonn Costello, said they put all their resources into developing the technology after the first coronavirus cases were reported in Ireland
Meanwhile, NUI Galway, together with University of Limerick and Orreco, a sports and data science company, have produced a new software package so health authorities can track the spread of Covid-19 in Ireland.
