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Objectives Our aim was to establish a paediatric virtual ward that delivers safe and high quality care for patients at home, release inpatient bed capacity and deliver greener care by reducing carbon footprint associated with acute hospitalisation. Methods A dedicated virtual ward team which consists of a lead consultant paediatrician and virtual ward nurses was established in October 2022 with an initial capacity of 6 beds which is currently increased to 12 beds. Referrals from senior clinicians are taken from the acute paediatric ward, paediatric assessment unit(PAU) and emergency department. Parents input their child's observations on the DOCOBO APPTM and are contacted by the virtual ward nurses at least twice daily. The service operates daily from 0800hrs to 2000hrs. From 2000hrs to 0800hrs, parents are advised to contact the PAU with any concerns. To ensure high quality safe care, a multidisciplinary daily ward round is conducted. There are currently six active pathways including respiratory, gastroenterology, extended observations, out of area antibiotics, jaundice and awaiting diagnostics. A parental survey was designed to evaluate parental satisfaction and feedback. Results We analysed our data over a nine-month period from 1st October 2022 to 31st June 2023 with a total of 371 patients. Prospective data regarding the number of patients each month, length of stay, number of contacts and home visits were collected. Data analysis included number of bed days released, impact on finances and carbon dioxide footprint. 75.6% of patients had respiratory illnesses (n =281), with bronchiolitis being the commonest diagnosis (183/281). Majority of the patients (66%) were referred from the paediatric ward and 32% from PAU. The total bed-days released was estimated via a multidisciplinary team approach to be 802days and carbon footprint of 56,381kg was avoided. The average length of stay in the virtual ward was 3.8 days. The average number of required visits was 1.3 visits per patient but only 29% were for clinical reasons. From the parental survey, the overall patient's experience was very good in 83% and good in 17%. Conclusion The virtual ward service is a safe efficient way to deliver high-quality care to paediatric patients at home which helps to improve patient flow, reduce waiting times, repatriate inpatient resources resulting in cost saving, reduce carbon footprint and achieve an overall positive patient experience with high parental satisfaction. There are opportunities for refinement and development to enhance this service in the future. References Page A, Dunn L, Evans J, et al. 277 Setting up a paediatric virtual ward. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2023;108:A401–A402. NHS England What is a virtual ward? Retrieved on October 20,2023, from https://www.england.nhs.uk/virtual-wards/what-is-a-virtual-ward/
Alkotamy et al. (Tue,) studied this question.