Using virtual wards and long-term conditions management network to improve practice and performance

Abstract

England has more than 15 million people and counting with long-term conditions who have the greatest healthcare needs of the population accounting for 50% of all General Practitioner (GP) appointments and 70% of all bed days. Digital technology has the potential to transform care through empowering patients, establishing more robust therapeutic relationships as well as supporting stronger teamworking across boundaries and enabling creation of communities and networks to support patients.There is some hesitancy in National Health Service to adopt digital innovation, but the pandemic has transformed use of remote monitoring in a matter of weeks. The pandemic has highlighted how collaboration and digital technology innovation can radically transform health and care services at pace when people are provided with the space and support to be innovative. Nurse and clinical leaders with digital knowledge are key in engaging nurses who need to be at the heart of technological developments and implementation to make sure changes facilitate, enhance patient care and improve clinical practice. This project aimed to create a forum that offered time, space and opportunities to innovate; share learning; and develop cross boundary relationships for project teams implementing technology-enabled remote monitoring or virtual ward solutions.Florence Nightingale Foundation scholar and NHSX Digital Health team ran the forum using community of practice principles. Qualitative data were used to measure any potential value created. Forum members reported increase in their personal knowledge as they managed to learn from others. An online platform created as an extension to the forum enabled members to continue networking and access resources. The forum provided space for relationships to get stronger. This enabled innovation that changed practice and performance around increased uptake of tech-enabled remote monitoring solutions by patients as well as indirect health outcomes. Further work is required to collate quantitative data to confirm these claims from the forum members.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.of the population accounting for 50% of all General Practitioner (GP) appointments and 70% of all bed days. Digital technology has the potential to transform care through empowering patients, establishing more robust therapeutic relationships as well as supporting stronger teamworking across boundaries and enabling creation of communities and networks to support patients.

There is some hesitancy in National Health Service to adopt digital innovation, but the pandemic has transformed use of remote monitoring in a matter of weeks. The pandemic has highlighted how collaboration and digital technology innovation can radically transform health and care services at pace when people are provided with the space and support to be innovative. Nurse and clinical leaders with digital knowledge are key in engaging nurses who need to be at the heart of technological developments and implementation to make sure changes facilitate, enhance patient care and improve clinical practice. This project aimed to create a forum that offered time, space and opportunities to innovate; share learning; and develop cross boundary relationships for project teams implementing technology-enabled remote monitoring or virtual ward solutions.

Florence Nightingale Foundation scholar and NHSX Digital Health team ran the forum using community of practice principles. Qualitative data were used to measure any potential value created. Forum members reported increase in their personal knowledge as they managed to learn from others. An online platform created as an extension to the forum enabled members to continue networking and access resources. The forum provided space for relationships to get stronger. This enabled innovation that changed practice and performance around increased uptake of tech-enabled remote monitoring solutions by patients as well as indirect health outcomes. Further work is required to collate quantitative data to confirm these claims from the forum members.

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2022-001952

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