How do healthcare providers, when faced with resource and budgetary constraints, continue to focus on the one thing that really matters - the patient?
An increasingly important solution is to introduce virtual care models, connecting healthcare professionals with patients - and their data - via video calls, phone calls, messaging and remote monitoring. However, models in which technology is implemented first can often result in increased operating costs rather than maximising limited clinical resources, leading to sustainability issues. These virtual care models often encounter similar challenges and administrative overheads as in-person services, demanding significant clinical resources to carry out non-clinical tasks. In turn, this impacts clinical productivity and eliminates clinical support for virtual wards. To unlock their full potential, virtual care services need to be supported by enabling services to ease the administrative burdens on clinicians.
That’s why we’ve developed our virtual care hub solution for NHS teams: a set of over 25 operational services - including design, mobilisation, operational delivery and support, and clinical governance. Designed to lift the burden of non-clinical activity to help the NHS achieve more, and more sustainably, our services help realise the potential of virtual care whilst improving clinical outcomes and efficiency, and optimising patient flow between elements of the care system. Our services aren’t alternative to the NHS; our purpose is to support the NHS and to improve the lives of both clinicians and patients, not to replace the vital connection between them.
Delivered in integrated partnerships with local care systems, our solution can be tailored collaboratively to local circumstances, supporting multiple care settings and pathways. Our approach involves co-creation and incremental proof of the benefits, such as time saved, increased capacity and reduced costs, to ensure success at each stage. We call this approach the virtual care hub.
⮬ Watch the video to find out more about our virtual care hub solution
Broadly speaking there are three models of virtual care:
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Localised - a virtual ward per department or provider
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Networked - where multiple local virtual wards integrate elements such as referral management or triage, but local clinical teams are kept separate
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Integrated - as networked, above, but with the pooling of clinical teams to enable more flexible resourcing and greater operational resilience as a more blended model.
While many virtual ward pilots adopt a localised model, there’s growing recognition in the NHS that at least networked, if not integrated, approaches are needed. Co-designed and delivered in partnership with the NHS and care providers, our virtual care hub solution can unlock the rich array of benefits offered by the networked and integrated models across the care continuum including:
Simplified patient access
Provides a single point of access for patients for referral to virtualised services, simplifying the care journey.
Predictive care modelling
Predictive population health and risk stratification informs across a range of patient needs such as long-term condition monitoring and anticipatory care services.
Reduced service demand
Driving up virtual ward occupancy eases pressure on secondary care services, offering greater resilience and making it easier to meet service demands and improve patient outcomes.
Economies of scale
Access to people, technology and administrative support at a provider and regional level reduces the cost per bed for economic sustainability.
Better use of blended resources
Increasingly, blended clinical teams are seen as a key response to the NHS resource challenge. The integrated virtual care hub model enables limited clinical capacity to be maximised across teams, increasing productivity.
Standardised integration
Offers standardisation at scale by linking to the wider system with simpler logistics and boundaries.
Our virtual care hub comprises a suite of over 25 enabling operational services designed to operate within local systems across the full-service life cycle, from design and mobilisation to operational delivery and support.
These enable you to manage capacity and demand against a range of virtual options wider than simply supporting discharge from secondary care. For example, depending on need, a patient might be directed to a preventative care model or an anticipatory response. Through integration with local NHS teams, the care hub manages this discharge, as well as the administration and technology enablement of the relevant virtual care model all within an appropriate clinical governance framework.
Data and insights are also used to drive up virtual ward occupancy though ‘case finding’ and proactively aligning virtual services to patient needs.
Mature clinical governance is at the heart of our health services and the same goes for virtual care. From annual reviews of our healthcare risk profile, to mandatory clinical governance training for employees, we prioritise compliance and put the necessary mitigations in place to ensure safe delivery to our service users.
⮬ Watch the video to see a patient’s perspective of the virtual care hub, and how it supports the best patient outcomes
