Best Virtual Ward Providers in the UK

Virtual Wards: Approaches to care 

NHS England and NHS Scotland have different approaches to virtual ward care. At present, NHS England’s guidance for virtual wards is to accommodate patients with frailty or suffering from an acute respiratory infection (ARI).

• Frailty: Older or elderly people who are disabled or in need of long-term care, or perhaps susceptible to falls, are deemed frail. Virtual wards are a good short-term solution to treating patients with frailty because they help mitigate the impact of hospital as an institution. This means avoiding detriment to physical health, such as muscle wastage and sores, and mental health, such as depression and delirium. Health Improvement Scotland states “30 to 56% have been shown to experience a reduction in their functional ability between admission to hospital and discharge.”  
  
  
• ARI: Acute respiratory infection is another safe option to encourage recovery away from the hospital ward. Wearable technology is proven effective at tracking heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels – all important vitals to monitor as a patient recovers from an infection that impacts their breathing and thus their blood oxygen levels. Infections are just one symptom of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is an area that virtual wards could likely expand to handle more.

The NHS has trialled ‘hospital at home’ aka virtual wards in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to handle chronic conditions including ARI but also diabetes and heart failure, whilst Scotland has also targeted sepsis and pulmonary embolism. In these instances, the trials were targeting the next safest conditions that had prolonged hospital admission times – especially during the busier winter months. 

The instruction for integrated care services is to provide the best care possible within the budgets allocated. Virtual wards allows them to separate out patients who are ideal candidates to recover at home and to support this recuperation.  

In addition to this, clinical staff also perform in-person visits to assess a patient and check their vital signs, as well as using their experience and instinct gained from experience to better inform their care decision making. Health Improvement Scotland details how Hospital at Home assists patients, with a Healthcare Support Worker performing initial checks and a blood test, before sharing their findings with a Nurse Practitioner who – accompanied by the HSW – does the hospital assessment. These findings are then passed to the Hospital at Home consultant, who is responsible for the care plan.

Virtual Wards: Tech solutions 

Virtual wards have been trialled since 2009 in the NHS in one form or another, but modern healthcare technology has now enabled this to be a much more reliable and cost-effective virtual wards technology care option. 

The solutions being utilised tend to be centred around remote monitoring, done by providing a hub device to report vitals, as well as wearable health monitoring kit - which can be in the form of a wristband, an armband, or a finger clip-on reader. These items are typically used for reactive monitoring; acting once an alert has triggered or a vital has taken a turn for the worse. 

Tablet devices are also being used to collect patient vitals. These tablets are also important for video calls and text-based chat with healthcare professionals, and SIMs are provided to support connectivity to the internet. The Access Group uses a dedicated hub to collect information and communicate it back to partner software to record the information, but our solution also provides proactive monitoring. This is done by using gathered data to establish trends from habitual activity and typical readings from the patient, and then subtle changes or deviations can prompt a healthcare professional to take action, to talk to the patient, or even to visit for a check-up to catch any potential deterioration before it begins proper. 

The right hardware and virtual wards software combinations are enabling the live reporting, management, and analysis of patient data – plus interoperability between other solutions for a unified care approach that stops anyone from falling through the gaps in the care system. This is where an end-to-end software system is advantageous. Remote monitoring, electronic patient records, care commissioning, and patient flow dashboards all share related information and should all be communicating. Joined-up care is a big target for the NHS, and it’s important to pursue the right software to enable this integrated approach to care.

UK providers and their offerings 

The amount of virtual ward providers is continuing to grow, but below we’ve picked out a number of organisations and a brief explanation about what they are offering to the market to help support virtual wards in their care provision.

Docobo

Docobo has two offerings for the virtual ward market: DOC@HOME and CAREPORTAL. 

Strengths: Patient monitoring and case management for both clinicians and patients, with web browser and app access and a wide range of vitals (heart rate, variability, breathing rate) captured. It can even manage the logistics of sending out the physical monitoring kits. 

Weaknesses: Limited to patient monitoring and minor administration support. Docobo don’t advertise offering patient management, an EPR, nor any mention of interoperability.

Current Health 

Current Health are probably the supplier with the most breadth in their virtual ward provision.  

Strengths: Their ‘Hospital at Home’ system provides patient kits for continual home monitoring, a connectivity hub for internet access, video calls and online messaging, and integration to other devices for data reporting purposes. The clinician dashboard is also customisable to the user. 

Weaknesses: Limited interoperability. Current Health states that they are only integrating with specific devices or partners based on their own assessments of quality and performance.

Whzan Digital Health 

Whzan offers the well-known Blue Box (an all-in-one home monitoring kit) as well as the WhzApp and the Guardian Kit – specifically for frailty care. 

Strengths: The blue box provides a pulse oximeter, blood pressure monitor, tablet (with Bluetooth), and a thermometer – all of which can record vital signs and report back through the WhzApp on the provided tablet. This same tablet can also take photos if necessary. The Guardian Kit is a more long-term solution, with smart electric plugs, door and window sensors, motion sensors, and even gas sensors coordinating to report any danger or any anomalous behaviour. All information can be sent from WhzApp to existing EPR solutions. 

Weaknesses: Limited to reporting and monitoring. No mention of software interoperability beyond EPRs specifically and Whzan don’t advertise any patient management tools.

EthelSense 

EthelSense is a monitoring solution that helps caregivers stay informed about the daily activities and routines of their patients. 

Strengths: The EthelSense Kit includes two smart Power plugs, two motion sensors, and two open/close sensors. Ethel Digital also offers a range of apps that work with remote monitoring software and taking care notes. 

Weaknesses: There’s a lot more to virtual wards than frailty, which is what EthelSense focuses on. This means areas of home monitoring not covered, such as blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen saturation, but then also the bigger picture patient management and electronic records. 

Masimo 

Masimo is a monitoring device specialist. 

Strengths: Masimo sells directly to the patient, as well as to healthcare providers. They are specialists in monitoring devices including the Masimo W1 (heart, movement, sleep), MightySat (oxygen saturation, pulse rate, breathing rate, perfusion index and pleth variability index) and Bridge – the first FDA-approved device for the management of opioid withdrawal symptoms. 

Weaknesses: Masimo boasts an impressive range of diversity in kit, but little on the software front. They’re ideal for the point of care, but not developing virtual wards overall and helping with patient management or electronic patient records. It’s not even clear if they have remote monitoring software to connect to their kits

HomeLink Healthcare 

HomeLink’s provides an all-in-one service that includes both remote monitoring equipment and their own ‘community-based team’. Because of this (like various other companies in the VW market), they prefer the term ‘Hospital at Home’.​ 

Strengths: HomeLink Healthcare actually operate virtual wards. They can implement both an on-site team managed by a Clinical and Operational Lead to co-ordinate patient care from the hospital, and a community-based team to carry out patient visits. The virtual ward is supported by a 24/7 clinical on-call service. They offer a choice of continuous or intermittent remote monitoring, communicate patient information to the hospital, and have relationships with several leading providers of remote monitoring equipment which can be included into their service. Alternately, they can use equipment already purchased by the NHS. 

Weaknesses: The private sector providing a virtual ward might be appropriate in some cases, but the NHS will want to lead for the most part to ensure properly integrated care, and it’s unclear how competitive costs would be.

Doccla 

Doccla has a patient app and a clinician app.  

Strengths: They integrate with a range of patient record systems, and this software, along with in-house specialists, helps treat patients at home. The Doccla App allows for patient data to be reported and observation questions to be answered, as well as supporting messaging and video calls. The clinician dashboard gives an overview of a patient’s wellbeing and their monitoring readings over time. 

Weaknesses: Lack of clarity on how integrated the clinician dashboard is beyond electronic patient record updates – can it work with bed management, patient flow tools, care commissioning? 

Dignio 

Dignio offers a suite of apps to track patients. 

Strengths: MyDignio is the patient app for monitoring your own health (under supervision), bringing the individual into their own care plan. Dignio Prevent is the app for the clinicians, allowing for patient management individually and as a wider population. It can handle messages and link, file, and photo sharing. Dignio Care is a tailor-made app for care homes. Care nurses can see a patient overview, their vital signs, NEWS2 assessments, soft signs monitoring, automatic triage and file sharing, as well as the option for messaging and video calls where suitable. 

Weaknesses: There is no mention of interoperability or integration with other software – a problem for NHS trusts with existing solutions in place. There is also no mention of remote monitoring, suggesting the apps would connect to as-yet-unknown wearables.

Huma 

Another dual purpose app, the Huma App has a patient side and a clinical side.  

Strengths: The app manages all clinical data gathered and enables text conversations and video communication. It also targets diabetes, which is being targeted for virtual ward care expansion. 

Weaknesses: The Huma App (according to the Huma website) only monitors blood pressure, heart issues, and diabetes. This is less scope than provided by many competitors for remote monitoring and it doesn’t include any wearable kit as far as can be seen. It also doesn’t contribute to patient management, and lacks clarity on integration with other software solutions regarding data sharing.

Epic 

Epic is an electronic patient record (EPR) system primarily. 

Strengths: Aside being an EPR, Epic also handles patient journeys from hospital to a home setting and offers interoperability with other software on the market. Their Community Connect Program is an offering to extend Epic’s provision from a partner organisation to a new provider. This brings a new group in and makes Epic their EPR provider, whilst also integrating the newcomers into the Epic patient portal system and their national exchange network. 

Weaknesses: Epic doesn’t offer any remote monitoring hardware or software and is vague about its interoperability within the market.

Spirit Health 

Clinitouch is SpiritHealth’s remote monitoring app, and one of the stronger apps on the market. 

Strengths: It can integrate with ‘any measurement device upon request’ via a Bluetooth connection and offers messaging and video calls.​ They are also FHIR/HL7 compliant, which enables the app’s integration with a wide variety of electronic patient record systems.​ 

Weaknesses: Spirit Health are well respected and so too is Clinitouch, but the scope of their virtual ward impact is limited at the entry level, with no solutions for further enhancing virtual wards as a service.

Technicare 

Technicare is a remote monitoring solution. 

Strengths: They state that they are ‘device agnostic and can aggregate data from any medical, patient or in-home device’.​ The product has the same functionality as most other patient monitoring software, including real-time data​, vital sign monitoring​, risk prediction using machine learning​, and a patient dashboard.  

Weaknesses: Like many of the providers listed above, the solution is entry level: it is focusing on the point of care and the patient, which is admirable, but lacks scope for any further evolution of virtual ward provision. It also doesn’t state any information about interoperability with other solutions.

What we offer 

At Access we are in a unique position with our suite of virtual ward software products. We offer a holistic and advanced solution for virtual wards, where we go beyond remote monitoring to provide an ecosystem for virtual care. 

Access Assure is the entry point to this ecosystem as our home monitoring system, but it’s not the typical reactive alarm-based system.  We have evolved this solution to provide proactive digital monitoring. By tracking a person’s daily habits and behaviours, we can build up a pattern of activity. Actions that break the prediction will flag up on the system, at which point carers and/or family can interact with the patient to check up on them and make sure everything’s alright.  

There are then four related solutions for optimising virtual ward care: patient flow management, care commissioning tools, electronic patient records, and case management. 

Clinicians using Access Patient Flow Manager get a simple overview on their screen of who’s in the ward, and a bed card for each individual showing where they were referred from and their key details. All these details can be updated directly, so anyone else reading the information does so in real time. These updates also synchronise with electronic patient record (EPR) software and patient administration systems (PAS). This cuts down on the long meetings to trade patient information, it speeds up handovers, and it removes clinical risk by having a centralised data point and role-based permissions to access and amend patient data. 

Access Adam Care Commissioning is our cloud-based end-to-end solution for commissioning and brokerage. It manages your entire workflow in one place, from start to finish. You can see the overall plan for your department, set targets for teams, and efficiently handle referrals to place individuals in the correct care they need. 

Our core solution is Rio EPR – our electronic patient records. Rio EPR handles data securely thanks to a centralised storage of information and role-based permissions. It’s also presented in a simple fashion with customisable options for the user, so they aren’t overloaded with information they don’t immediately or regularly need. It can work in browser, or in the Rio Mobilise app for remote usage, and we strive to ensure interoperability between our solution and other software. 

The final offering is Access Mosaic. It is a modular piece of software that handles adult, child, or finance cases for local authorities. Its main purpose is case management; a secure, integrated portal that enables greater communication, efficient multi-agency working, and individual’s access to vital information for their care.  

Perhaps the biggest offering from Access is interoperability. We believe that joining up systems is key to professionals being able to offer the best care so we're open to integrating with all systems. This means that healthcare providers can pick and choose which of our software solutions they want to onboard, and we’ll help integrate them with existing ones.

Which approach is best for you  

Each virtual ward will look different and face unique virtual wards challenges, and you need to make sure you're looking for a provider that understands and can meet your needs. You don't need to overhaul everything you have already been doing. Instead, find a solution that works within your existing processes and makes them easier, to give you all the information you need to provide better care and have a clear view of your virtual wards. 

There are a variety of Framework Agreement Suppliers as authorised by the NHS SBS, including The Access Group. Any of these suppliers can help you establish a quick monitoring fix, but if you want a more comprehensive approach to your monitoring then you can’t afford to look beyond Access. 

Our home monitoring kits are a robust and comprehensive patient package, but our telecare solution can integrate with several other medical software tools at Access such as Rio EPR for electronic patient records, Access Care Planning, and Access Medication Management for eMar or electronic medication administration records. 

NHS trusts and local authorities are looking to make the most out of virtual wards, but they’re also looking for the business journey of least difficulty. The right provider will make life the easiest.