“It was absolutely brilliant – I felt very well looked after,” according to Margaret Curtin (77), commenting following her positive experience of the Acute Virtual Ward programme at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) in recent months.
Shannon resident Margaret recalls her amazement at being told, after having spent a night in ED with bronchial pneumonia, that there was an option of continuing her recovery from home.
“Two doctors came to me on the ward and asked if I would like to go home, and then the virtual ward nurses came to explain how the system works. I’m glad my daughters were with me because they understood what had to be done, and before long we were on the way home.
Every morning and evening, my daughter helped me use the kit to take my blood pressure, temperature and heartrate. All that information goes to the hospital automatically through the tablet. Then I had two follow-up calls from the nurses on the ward every day, and they would go through the results, and ask me how I was feeling, and after a week, it was all done. It was absolutely brilliant – I felt very well looked after.
When you have a condition like mine, which can be managed that way, the virtual ward is perfect, especially with how busy things are in hospitals these days. So when they told me about it, I was just over the moon, especially as one of my daughters is a trained First Aid responder and could help me, so it was great.”
The Acute Virtual Ward at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is helping to transform hospital healthcare in the Mid West, with remote technology allowing suitable patients to be treated and monitored safely at home, freeing up valuable inpatient beds for the hospital management of more acutely ill patients.
Since the ward opened at UHL on 1st July, 2024, a total of 1,128 patients have been seen saving 10,603 inpatient bed-days across general medicine and surgery referral pathways, and specialised referral pathways including cardiology, respiratory, gynaecology and orthopaedic.
Virtual Ward patients take home a technology kit, including a tablet and medical diagnostic equipment that links the patient with the central hub in UHL, allowing for 24/7 monitoring. Average ‘length of stay’ is approx. 6-7 days, and when discharged, the patient simply returns the kit to UHL via registered post.
Based on feedback, patients are very happy, rating the experience as “very good”, and awarding an average 4.8 out of 5 for patient safety.
The initial success at UHL has driven expansion of the referral pathways to include general medicine, respiratory-asthma pathway, respiratory supplementary oxygen pathway; minor stroke/TIA; rehab; orthopaedic post-operative knee & hip (with Croom Orthopaedic Hospital); gynaecology; and a respiratory pathway for St John’s Hospital. Discussions are ongoing to build new patient specific pathways.
Chief Director of Nursing & Midwifery for HSE Mid West Acute Hospitals, Ber Murphy, explains that
“the Acute Virtual Ward is a very safe and effective way of caring for patients in their home. We’re pleased to hear the positive feedback from Margaret and all patients referred to the ward. It’s proven to be a very empowering option for patients of all ages. There are obvious advantages for home-based treatment, especially for older people who live a distance from the hospital. Over the lifetime of the service we’ve steadily increased the number of pathways, and we’ll continue to use and expand this important service, with an ongoing increase in patient-specific pathway development".
Margaret further added that “please God I won’t be needing them again, but I’d opt for the Virtual Ward system all the time if I could.”