AN an exciting and innovative all-Wales pilot study which aims to connect schools to health and social care through remote monitoring across Wales is being conducted by a team in TEC Cymru, hosted by Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB).

Led by a team at TEC Cymru the project is being supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) Wales who’s manager Ollie John, said “We’ve been delighted to support the work of TEC Cymru into remote monitoring. Importantly the work has been co-designed with young people, and it has the potential to deliver a timely, efficient intervention.”

TERMS is a project which is piloting the use of remote monitoring, with a vision to bring health and social care into schools to improve access to healthcare services.

Remote monitoring is the ability to monitor and manage aspects of patient health from a distance, through the use of technology. The technology can collect information on measures such as blood pressure, heart rate, and weight.

“We have recently secured the remote monitoring technology to undergo our pilot testing for this project. We are now ready to begin testing user experience of the technology within schools and clinical teams.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for schools to become involved in a pioneering project taking place within Wales, to develop and improve NHS services,” explained TEC Cymru researcher Vicky Daniels

The Principal Investigator, Alka Ahuja MBE said: “We are delighted to receive the funding from the Q lab (Health Foundation) for TERMS (Technology enabled remote monitoring in schools). The introduction of remote monitoring for young people in schools has the potential to provide an efficient service that saves time, reduces cost and reduces stress for young people, families and clinicians while improving communication between health and education.”

Alka Ahuja is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and is the National Clinical Lead for the Technology Enabled Care Programme. She was awarded an MBE in 2021 due to her work done on video consulting during the pandemic.

Vicky Daniels added, “This is such an exciting project to be involved in, it is going to be ground breaking for many different services in Wales in supporting young people with their physical and mental health.”

“The project is being fully evaluated, through adopting a phased, embedded approach to understand the full impact that TERMS could have across Wales,” said Gemma Johns, the Head of Research at TEC Cymru.

The research and evaluation approach that TEC Cymru follow can be found using this link: https://digitalhealth.wales/tec-cymru/research/research-evaluation-framework