Hospital at home for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: an integrated hospital and community based generic intermediate care service for prevention and early discharge.

Recent randomized controlled studies have reported success for hospital at home for prevention and early discharge of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients using hospital based respiratory nurse specialists. This observational study reports results using an integrated hospital and community based generic intermediate care service. The length of care, readmission within 60 days and death within 60 days in the early discharge (9.

Telemedicine for multidisciplinary lung cancer meetings.

According to recent UK guidelines on the management of lung cancer, all cases should be reviewed prospectively by a lung cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) and a thoracic surgeon should be readily available to liaise with the MDT. However, there is a shortage of thoracic surgeons in the UK. Over a one-year period, 28 MDT meetings were held at a district general hospital in Southend, at which 62 patients were presented to a tertiary cardiothoracic centre in London, 80 km away, via ISDN videoconferencing at 384 kbit/s.