The Telehealth in MND system: development and evaluation (TIME)

Research summary

Telehealth in MND (TiM) is a remote monitoring system for people with MND (pwMND) and their carers, who complete regular questionnaires through the system, which are reviewed by healthcare professionals (HCPs). We also have funding to develop a research-specific TiM system. Therefore, the current service is called TiM-Care and the new system is called TiM-Research. This project aims to develop and evaluate the two systems. The project is split into four parts. Firstly, implementing new digital services into the NHS is difficult. We wish to understand what helps and hinders the implementation process, with the aim to create a ‘toolkit’ that can help us implement TiM easier in the future. This toolkit could also be helpful for other digital services. To create the toolkit, we will interview 10-15 people who have been involved in implementing TiM as a service. Secondly, to develop TiM-C and TiM-R, we wish to gain the views of the people who are or will be using these systems. We will hold individual and group interviews with pwMND, their carers, HCPs, MND researchers, and industry representatives to understand what needs are currently unmet and how TiM can be developed to meet these needs. Thirdly, to evaluate TiM-C, we will conduct a process evaluation. This will include questionnaires and interviews for pwMND, their carers, and HCPs to understand what they like and dislike about TiM-C. We will investigate how people engage with the system, by looking at how many questionnaires are completed through TiM. Lastly, we will observe how TiM is used during clinical appointments and multidisciplinary team meetings by attending these meetings and making notes. Fourth, we will examine the costs involved in deploying TiM-C by estimating the time it takes to review the questionnaire answers by HCPs and also how these costs affect the clinical service.

Principal Investigator

Dr Alexander Thompson

Contact us

Email: dendron@ouh.nhs.uk

IRAS number

318006