As professionals in the healthcare industry, we are witnessing a monumental shift in patient care. The adoption of Virtual Ward and Remote Monitoring technology within the UK NHS has been a game-changer. 🇬🇧💡 In my role at Ortus-iHealth, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the positive impact of Virtual Ward and Remote Monitoring within our customer base as well as in the wider NHS and patient community. It’s exciting to see how this technology has nudged, and in some areas, started to revolutionise patient care, but there are challenges we need to overcome.

Let’s be real about this; challenges are everywhere, waiting lists are growing, and there is a shortage of resources across the board ranging from staff to hospital beds, and of course, the impact of strike disruption is ever-increasing the fatigue and well-being of those we rely on for service delivery. The inevitable outcome is that patient welfare is put at risk, and it is in that context virtual wards and remote monitoring represent a real opportunity.

At a minimum, we can identify deteriorating patients and prioritise their treatment where appropriate. This puts patient safety at the heart of delivery and, in doing so, reduces unnecessary admissions and enables earlier discharge, freeing up bed capacity, reducing emergency admissions, and enabling the better management and prioritisation of elective care patients.

And no, it doesn’t address the resource issues, but it does give us the opportunity to deliver access to care to those of the highest acuity. It can also be argued that progress is really being made on the path to putting patients at the center of their healthcare journey. 🙌💬

👉 I thought it would be helpful to break down the SWOT analysis of this transformative technology, drawing from both industry insights and personal experiences. So in this first post of 4 I’ll provide a helicopter view of some immediate observations and I’ll be following up with detail in the posts that follow.