Virtual wards (also known as hospital at home) can reduce pressure on hospital beds. DOC@HOME is a virtual ward solution which is being used across the NHS, enabling patients to be cared for at home, enhancing integrated health and social care and promoting multi-disciplinary team working. Docobo has an established track record of providing virtual wards for the NHS
VIRTUAL WARDS & HOSPITAL AT HOME
Virtual wards provide effective hospital at home monitoring
Virtual Wards: Hospital at Home
Virtual wards
What are virtual wards?
Virtual wards act like a hospital at home, patients can be physically discharged to their home environment, but their care and clinical responsibility remains with the hospital until clinical discharge
How can Docobo support you with virtual wards?
Docobo provides ongoing support from a dedicated service manager who will work collaboratively with you on the implementation and the whole virtual ward process. Clinicians assess patient risk to establish if it is safe to monitor the patient at home. Docobo will then manage the logistics for your virtual ward, sending out the right equipment to the right place at the right time.
With our years of expertise, Docobo can do the following:
- Enrol numerous patients quickly and easily onto the system
- Closely monitor patients within your virtual ward
- Generate alerts to support clinicians to manage any health concerns
- Seamless transition to primary care long term condition monitoring
- Seamless ‘step up’ capability should this be required
- Patients can be discharged from virtual wards within minutesWith all Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) being tasked to create virtual wards in the coming years, Docobo’s services are providing the technology and logistics to run and sustain virtual wards. You can read more about the work Docobo has done on virtual wards here
Docobo provides a flexible solution for virtual wards
With many years of experience of remote monitoring, Docobo works with NHS clients to support their virtual ward requirements, successfully implementing virtual wards for:
Acute step-up
This offers an intermediate level of care for somebody in primary care – for example, if a GP is not 100% certain whether to refer a patient to hospital or not. The treatment will be more intense, but without having to incur an immediate admission
Adverse incident form (AVI)
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Alcohol withdrawal
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Arthroplasty
Supportive discharge for people who have had an operation, to monitor their recovery
Atrial fibrillation (AF)
Means of monitoring somebody’s atrial fibrillation more intensely and under the care of the right expertise
Bronchiectasis
This virtual ward enables the respiratory team to monitor somebody with bronchiectasis more intensely
Cellulitis
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Chest infection
Patient’s condition is monitored intensely by respiratory team until they can be returned to primary care
Complex patients
This virtual ward offers an intermediate level of care for co-morbid patients
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
Patients can be stepped up or stepped down and cared for by a respiratory team at this intermediate level of care
Covid
Patients with covid or long-covid can be monitored by the respiratory team before being passed back to primary care
Diabetes
Patients are being monitored more intensely than they are in primary care to help bring their condition under control
Diabetes in pregnancy
Diabetes in pregnancy, or gestational diabetes. This virtual ward offers a more intense intermediate offer of care than a full hospital admission
Endocarditis
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Frailty
For frail patients, this virtual ward offers an intermediate level of care typically for those with long term conditions or a specific issue which the clinician wants to monitor
General medical
This virtual ward is for hospital to home care, keeping the patient under acute surveillance thus avoiding an admission
Heart failure - ambulatory
An intermediate level of monitoring that helps determine the right pathway and treatment for the patient
Heart failure - community
Some examples of how we have supported NHS clients are:
Heart failure - discharge
Step down virtual ward from acute setting to release the bed as soon as it’s safe to do so, while monitoring the patient to check they are safe before returning to primary care
Heart function
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Influenza
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Intestinal failure
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Maternity
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Co-morbidities
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Neutralising monoclonal antibodies (nMABS)
This virtual ward ensures treatment for people who have, or have had, covid and to avoid readmission
Non-invasive ventilation
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Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT)
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Oxygen monitoring
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Paediatric
These virtual wards monitor children who have been discharged from hospital but require a level of specialist care and monitoring to maintain their safety at home
Pain
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Palliative care
This virtual ward enables hospices to provide outreach care for patients in palliation staying at home, often facilitating patients wishes for end of life
Pneumonia
The patient’s condition is monitored intensely until they can be returned to primary care
Pneumonia and COPD
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Post-op laparotomy
This virtual ward enables patients to be discharged sooner after surgery and before being returned to primary care
Post-partum hypertension
This virtual ward offers a high level of observation until the mothers blood pressure returns to steady state or requires intervention
Pulmonary embolism
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Respiratory
Patients with respiratory conditions can be stepped up or down to respiratory virtual wards to monitor their condition before an admission is necessary or as a step down from hospital
Same day emergency care (SDEC)
We are still populating examples for this section. Sorry for any inconvenience
Septic arthritis
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Soft tissue infection
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Supported discharge & frailty
Frailty step down virtual ward
For frail patients, this virtual ward offers an intermediate level of care typically for those with long term conditions or a specific issue which the clinician wants to monitor
Surgical assessment unit (SAU)
Supportive discharge to outpatients after having a stabilisation treatment (usually knee or hip)
Urinary tract infection (UTI)
This virtual ward offers an intermediate level of care to observe a patient’s health until the infection has passed or intervene if necessary
How do virtual wards work?
Once patients have been physically discharged to a virtual ward, patients or carers are asked to take a range of health readings at home according to clinical need, e.g. blood pressure, blood oxygen levels and temperature. They also answer a suite of symptomatic questions to complete their observations. Note that these can emulate in-hospital early warning scores and frequency of observations
The readings are fed back to the physical ward and/or a clinical monitoring ‘hub’, typically any anomalies in the readings are highlighted and clinicians made aware to trigger investigation which may lead to an intervention
Equally, if a patient begins to feel unwell, they can use the virtual ward system to quickly alert a clinician, reducing the possibility of emergency re-admission
Virtual wards are growing rapidly across a wide range of specialities, from paediatrics to cardiology, within community care settings or in patients’ individual homes, the early positive results from virtual wards are encouraging
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What are the benefits of virtual wards?
There are a wide range of benefits when it comes to treating patients using virtual wards:
- Shortens the length of stay in hospital reducing pressure on beds
- Offers a new level of intermediate care (e.g. for GPs and others to refer to)
- Information recorded is more frequent – providing richer analysis
- Helps keep people at home (where most prefer to be and recover better) and home is usually better for their mental health
- Facilitates timely and safe discharge
- Encourages collaborative patient care
- Improves communication between all services, patients, and carers
Patients who may otherwise be re-admitted to hospital are being supported in the community, reducing the re-admission rate and could anticipate better titration of medications
How have virtual wards been used during COVID?
Virtual wards were developed and introduced in the UK, coming to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce transmission of infection as well as releasing much needed hospital beds
Our solutions
Virtual wards
Providing patient care at home with all-encompassing virtual ward technology and real, human support
Opportunistic screening
Optimising the health of the nation by proactively identifying individuals at risk
