Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) is expanding its virtual wards service to support heart failure and pneumonia patients.
The decision to open the service to other suitable patients follows its use of a remote monitoring platform and tools for COVID-19 patients during the pandemic.
HTC has already been working with East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, NHS East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Princess Alexandra Hospital, HUC and the medical technology company Doccla, to support 50 COVID-19 patients to recover at home.
Once discharged from hospital, the patients are equipped with medical monitoring tools that work with the Doccla virtual ward platform and send automated readings and alerts of routine measurements including blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels and temperature, to HCT clinicians. Abnormal readings are flagged for potential intervention and patients also receive regular calls from HCT’s Prevention of Admission team.
As well as now offering the service to selected non-COVID patients, the collaboration is also exploring the system’s potential to be used to help improve surgical waiting lists. This will involve monitoring patients before their operation, to reduce the risk of cancellation due to issues such as anaemia or high blood pressure, and afterwards to allow them to return home earlier for their recovery.
Elizabeth Kendrick, HCT Medical Director, said: “This is a fantastic example of healthcare collaboration made possible by the strong relationships we have with our acute and primary care colleagues across the region, combined with the medical technological expertise provided by Doccla. I’m excited to see how this innovation can be rolled out to support many more patients with a variety of health conditions in the near future.”
Dag Larsson, CEO and cofounder of Doccla, added: “We are reimagining hospital care in a post-COVID-19 world, presenting a new way to deliver healthcare in the home safely and effectively. COVID-19 has fast-tracked the adoption of remote patient monitoring into the NHS but, as Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust has seen, the technology produces benefits beyond the COVID-19 ward. As cases decline, there is room to offer a safe, effective way of managing additional chronic and acute patients when they leave hospital.”
