What is a virtual ward?
Virtual wards are part of the digital transformation of healthcare. They allow patients to get the care they need at home safely and conveniently, rather than being in the hospital.
An example of where a virtual ward can be successfully put in place is when patients with chronic diseases such as COPD that are at high risk of repeated hospital readmission are put on a virtual ward programme to help prevent hospital readmission. Healthcare organisations can also use virtual wards to support people with frailty or acute respiratory infections while allowing them to remain in their own home (or care home facility).
In a virtual ward, support can include remote monitoring using apps, technology platforms, wearables and medical devices such as pulse oximeters. Support may also involve face-to-face care from multi-disciplinary teams based in the community, which is sometimes called Hospital at Home.
myPatientSpace provides a single platform to allow healthcare organisations to effectively deliver virtual wards and hospital at home services.
Why do Healthcare organisations need to offer Virtual Wards?
Virtual wards offer benefits for both patients and healthcare organisations.
Technology has enabled Healthcare organisations to deliver care for some patients very effectively and efficiently while they remain in the comfort of their own home.
To meet increase in demand and ever rising healthcare delivery costs, virtual ward solutions allow these challenges to be addressed.
Patients benefit from getting the care more conveniently
and often faster than they would if they required a bed in a hospital setting or an in-person clinic appointment. Patients can also benefit from avoiding unnecessary hospital admission.
Examples of where virtual wards can be very beneficial in hospital avoidance is where known cohorts of patients who are at high risk of hospital readmittance are set up on a virtual care program and given technology support to be monitored and supported in a level of self-care that ensures that they avoid being readmitted into hospital. A good example of this is outlined in our case studies below on Donegal/Letterkenny COPD patients.
Supporting virtual wards
Another common use for myPatientSpace in supporting virtual wards include supported early discharge programmes with a home monitoring device. During the pandemic, many virtual wards were set up which allowed the hospitals to monitor COVID patients at home with the help of pulse oximeters and digital companions. Patients with other chronic conditions can avoid being admitted to a physical hospital by being put on a virtual ward program.
Key functionality of a virtual ward includes:
Remote monitoring equipment
Virtual communication between the patient and medical staff, such as video conferencing or telephone calls
Virtual ward reports / data analytics
Data security for patients
Personal health data management
Patient support and accessibility features in the digital platform
The myPatientSpace Virtual Ward Platform
The myPatientSpace platform offers a full solution platform to healthcare organisations to deliver their bespoke virtual ward solutions quickly and cost effectively with the reassurance that it fully adheres to the required standards and has proven benefits for healthcare organisations globally.
The platform contains the following features to enable the full virtual ward configuration, design and delivery to be achieved efficiently and cost effectively.
The required features of a virtual ward are all contained in our single enterprise class platform. These features include;
• Connection to a wide variety of Remote monitoring equipment
• Virtual communication between the patient and medical staff, such as video conferencing and telephone calls
• Virtual ward reports with data analytics
• Data security for patients
• Personal health data management features
• Tailored patient support task management and self-management material
Examples of remote monitoring currently available using the MPS Virtual Ward platform includes;
• Blood pressure
• Heart rate
• Oxygen saturation
• Body temperature
• Blood glucose
The myPatient Space platform has been used by many leading hospitals to deliver successful virtual wards.
Why Choose MPS for your Virtual Care Needs?
- Our highly customisable platform and dynamic team are involved in multiple successful virtual ward projects globally so you’ll benefit from our trusted platform and team of experts.
- Our Single enterprise class platform that has both depth and breadth to manage any care journey including care journeys that are exclusively virtual or a combination of virtual and in person care either in a primary care or secondary care setting.
- Available out of the box with the combined capabilities of the multiple other offerings on the market BUT that can rapidly deployed, locally branded, customised and scaled in days and weeks NOT months and years.
- Our product is an ISO certified Medical Device that has remote monitoring and video consultation capability, multilingual enterprise content management, chat/messaging capability, integration with medical devices, EHRs, labs, radiology, patient fitbits along with clinical decision support, task managers, medication adherence & anything else needed on a patients care journey
- myPatientSpace is a single future proofed solution to meet the needs of any virtual care service. We will give you the tools to develop the clinical service you require for your patients.