The importance of Digital Health

“We must make the Digital Telecare switch or risk losing lives” is the stark warning from Martyn Wallace, CDO of the Digital Office Scotland on the 17th December 2020.

We have covered some of the thinking behind this before in this blog but basically the old, twisted pair telephone system is being wound up after 50 years with its final moments in 2025. But the new digital system has already been rolled out across the country in a patchwork of providers and locations. Existing analogue systems for Technology Enabled Care, Payment and Security are increasingly failing as its ‘over the top’ analogue signals are being mistranslated to digital and back again as it hops across this patchwork system.

The whole Covid situation has highlighted the importance of good communications especially when it is difficult or possibly dangerous for staff to be on site. This has given a strong impetus to make the shift from fixed line to mobile too, more flexible, easier installation and higher standards of testing and reliability.

Martyn refers to some services being withdrawn in 2023 and that remaining two years or eighteen months will quickly evaporate. This will leave the industry scrambling to install kit in order to prevent stranded users and dead equipment. The move is made more complicated in that many Health Authorities are themselves using hybrid digital/analogue and fixed line/mobile systems.

The question is: how to install a system that is digital ready, without starting to pay for the sim service you aren’t really using until the monitoring centre is SCAIP ready?  Especially as standard network SIMs have an expiry date under an obligation to Ofcom that controls the number of inactive SIMs in consumer circulation. This means that if you put standard SIMs in now when you are installing kit, they won’t work in two years’ time when you need them.

Mobius exclusively works in the Internet of Things market and is the only Airtime Provider that is accredited to the TSA Quality Standards Framework. That allows us to offer SIMs specifically profiled for the health market including a system that permits installation of the SIM- including testing- and then for the SIM to be suspended indefinitely at no cost. The SIM can then be activated remotely when the rest of the Authorities system is ready to go Digital.

This saves you extra visits, swap outs and because you have already tested the unit at the point you shipped it, testing as you already know it’s working.

To read more of Martyn’s article please click here
And to find out more about how Mobius is already helping Health Authorities go Digital today and tomorrow contact Julie on 01530 511 180 or  [email protected]

Written by

Douglas Gilmour

Douglas formed Mobius in 2003 after twenty years’ experience in the Semiconductor industry. He was driven by the idea that airtime could be better and more secure.