Study: Virtual wards do not move dial on readmissions

A virtual ward model of care showed no impact on readmissions or deaths 30 days or 90 days, 6 months or 1 year after hospital discharge, according to a University of Toronto study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The research assessed the impact of a virtual ward, a model of care that uses some of the systems of a hospital ward to provide interprofessional care for patients in the community on patients at high risk of readmission or death.

For the study—which took place from June 2010 to June 2014—1,923 high-risk adult hospital discharge patients were randomly assigned to the virtual ward model or a traditional model of care.

Those assigned to virtual ward care received care coordination in addition to direct care provision, offered through a combination of telephone, home visits or clinic visits. An interprofessional team convened daily to design and implement individual management plans.

The study revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups on the variables studied.

"Our study showed that the virtual ward model of care did not reduce the primary outcome of readmission or death, or either component individually, in a diverse group of high-risk patients being discharged from hospital,” concluded the authors.

Read the full study.