Over-claiming the evidence for telehealth and telecare?

摘要

It would seem that the emperor has few clothes.1 Telehealth and telecare have been relentlessly plugged in the Health Service Journal forthe pastyearorso in a succession of features, some accompanied by the sector manufacturing the technology. At no point did the journal have an open, balanced BMJ style head to head debate so that the sceptics could have theirsay and restore balance to the narrative.Despite the Department of Health beingthe sponsor of the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) trial, the government selectively revealed the more positive pieces of data from this work before it had been published in a peer reviewed journal, accompanied by exhortations "now we know that it works" to adopt at pace and scale. This showed little respect forthe integrity of the research process.