Melbourne’s Monash Health plans to set up a new virtual hospital service to look after patients in their own homes, asking remote monitoring software vendors to help with a proof of concept trial centring initially on patients with congestive heart failure at risk of readmission to hospital.

Should the proof of concept prove successful, the plan is to roll the virtual hospital model out to other patients with chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive respiratory disease, patients undergoing cancer therapy, and patients with diabetes.