The Department of Health is planning to have virtual wards available at all 40 acute hospitals in Ireland within the next 18 months, Pulse+IT can reveal.
The news comes as the first two virtual wards were officially announced this week for Dublin and Limerick, with UK-headquartered Swedish remote patient monitoring software developer Doccla providing the technology platform.
Speaking at the HSE Spark Summit last week, Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt said the 18-month goal ‘will not be easy but will be worth it’.
“We’re talking about 25 virtual beds in Vincent’s and in Limerick,” Mr Watt told the conference. “There are 40 acute hospitals in the country. That could be nearly 1000 extra beds. That’s seven to eight per cent of our current capacity.
“I know it’s not going to be easy. We can’t do it over night, but over the next year or 18 months we should have virtual wards in every significant setting, freeing up beds and discharging people faster.
“As we all know, people prefer to be at home in their own bed, with friends and family nearby. If we can do that safely and securely, that in itself will transform the care we provide.”
As reported by Pulse+IT last month, the first two virtual wards will be introduced at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) and St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) in Dublin this month.
The service is being provided in partnership with Doccla, the start-up company that currently delivers virtual wards throughout the NHS and other European health systems, including Germany and France.
Doccla was founded in 2019 after founder, Martin Ratz, suffered a heart attack at a young age. His experience of hospitalisation and discharge without follow-up monitoring spurred him to use the latest technology to deliver care. The HSE partnership marks Doccla’s entry into the Irish market.
The service at UHL and SVUH will initially be offered to suitable patients who are admitted to hospital with a respiratory or cardiac condition and are medically stable but require ongoing monitoring and care before they can be discharged.
Wearables and other technologies will be used to constantly monitor key clinical measures, and patients will receive blood tests, medication or IV fluids, as need, at home. Patients are reviewed daily by the clinical team as part of a virtual ward round. This may involve a home visit or take place via video.
Commenting on the development, Deirdre McNamara, director of strategic programmes at the HSE, said: “Virtual wards herald a new and exciting phase of the digital transformation of our health service. They support the delivery of care in the right place, at the right time. The service will start this month and will be scaled up, supporting increased in-hospital bed capacity, which will reduce pressure on the health system over time.”
The roll-out of the virtual ward service follows a successful pilot at Letterkenny General Hospital between May and August 2022. The proof-of-concept initiative included 15 patients with COPD who had required repeated hospital admission for COPD exacerbations.
In an effort to empower people to self-manage their illness and to avoid hospital admission, a bespoke platform that incorporated respiratory rate (RR) trends was designed and implemented in Co Donegal. This data was reviewed by an advanced nurse practitioner daily.
At the end of the pilot period, the data revealed that hospital avoidance was achieved in 100 per cent of the 18 exacerbations recorded in 10 participating patients.
The average cost per patient reduced from €19,384 to €3376, with a 96.7 per cent probability of being both cost saving and cost effective at a €45,000 willingness to pay threshold.
