Telehealth stories

These stories were created at a Patient Voices reflective digital storytelling workshop in Rothesay, Isle of Bute, in 2010. E-Health supports nursing practice through technology. Telehealth gives people the opportunity to take greater control of their own health. It allows nurses, other healthcare workers and patients to work in partnership, thereby improving health outcomes and people’s experiences of healthcare. The RCN is developing policy, guidance and resources to support the future needs of nurses and health care workers to prepare them for eHealth in nursing and patient care. These digital stories are at the heart of this work. We would like to thank the storytellers for sharing their experiences and for demonstrating that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

My Pod
Shortness of breath caused by COPD and Emphysema change Margaret’s life radically. Leaving the house, breathing, or caring for her granddaughter become things of the past. However, the arrival of telehealth equipment in her home provides reassurance, better monitoring, management and treatment of her condition – and the chance to share in the co-production of care with her granddaughter!

Not Florence Nightingale?
Lynn’s nursing career is successful, but brings less and less patient contact as it develops. Paradoxically, working on an innovative and effective telehealth project brings her face to face with her patients, and finally to an awareness of the nature of her vocation.

Opportunity knocks
Katrina has always wanted to help and care for patients in better and more effective ways. She develops education and self-care programmes to help patients with respiratory conditions, and then recognises the opportunities and benefits that telehealth programmes can – and do – bring to her patients.

Breathless
Gardening, fishing, dancing, family – these are all important aspects of Jim’s life that Asthma and COPD take away from him. The uncertainty of when another attack will happen haunt Jim’s life until telehealth equipment makes it possible for nurses to monitor his condition from a distance.

Delivering Telehealth: a circular journey
Charles is an inventive and enthusiastic child, whose blend of vision, determination and technical skills are just what is needed to take telehealth from tentative concept to effective reality.

Hope for the future
Sheena’s work with people with COPD leads to working with patients to improve their care through the use of telehealth systems. Admissions are reduced, hospital stays are shortening – and those around her, both patients and family, have renewed hope for the future.

How can I make a difference?
Maggie’s vocation has always been to care. Her experiences of health issues only serve to reinforce the excitement she feels now that telemedicine technology can be used to benefit her patients.