The socio- economic feasibility and viability of DISA was carried out in situ and in vivo in 4 French EHPADs . These EHPADs were selected because they were in a region (Northern Paris region) where the elderly population was growing while facing a lack of physicians. In the Picardy region, there are 250 physicians for 100.000 inhabitants, far below the national average of 290.
The experience is planned to last 15 months and is divided in 2 stages:
1. STAGE 1 of the in-situ experimentation: Exploratory stage (3 months) to validate assumptions made for the evaluation . This Stage 1 is conducted without DISA armchair to assess and measure the situation without the e-health armchair. Then, these same Ehpads receive the DISA armchair so that we can compare before and after the e-health armchair.
2. STAGE 2 of the in-situ experimentation :
a. Pilot stage (9 months) to test out the armchair in the nursing home experimental site and to collect data The pilot stage started in July 2015 and will last up to March 2016.
b. Analysis stage (3 months) to analyse and process statistical data and provide the final version of the evaluation results and recommendations
When direct costs (amortization and staffing costs) are considered, DISA is less expensive than the standard medical kit for all 4 EHPADs. If the armchair is used by a care assistant rather than a nurse, an economy is made; Delegating this task to care assistants may result to their skill improvement together with a better use of nurses’ time to improve healthcare quality and patient safety.
After having tested the armchair for a few months, doctors and medical staff were quite satisfied with the DISA armchair. Their comments were that the DISA armchair was really helpful for measuring the weight and the ECG. The fact that you could wheel the armchair to the patient’s bed made their job easier. Another good point for the medical staff was that all measurements could be compared from one time to another so you could easily see the variations in every measure taken out of the patient.
As for the elderly people who tested DISA armchair, they rather liked it on the whole because it was not frightening. They did not have the impression that they were undergoing medical exams. They just sat on the armchair and that was all! So on the whole, the emotional feedback is good.
Study in a physician’s office
According to the physician's where the experimentation was conducted, the use of the DISA armchair made him gained half the time of a consultation without the e-health armchair with much more information. He even offered us to keep the DISA armchair after the experience because it helps him optimize the patients flow, get more accurate and detailed data from the medical patient’s body and free time for administration work or continuing-medical-education during the week.
This reorganizes completely his time allocation in a far better way than without the DISA armchair. He could indeed double the time dedicated to administrative work per day and spend less time for this duty on Friday. The time won was for external medical visits. This also helps him save time for continuing medical education per day.
Regarding the number of patients received, he increased by 165% the number of patients received in his office, which had a strong impact on his incomes too. Some of the key effects of adding the DISA e-health solution to doctors’ practice are compensation for after-hours patient encounters, a more efficient appointment schedule, an ability to see more patients, and an optimized patient flow.
The results of both these experiences is positive and these results prove that the DISA armchair has a strong impact on the economic, social and financing level whether it be for an elderly residence or a doctor’s office.
