Virtual wards are a combination of people, place and technology. Once a patient may have been cared for in a hospital ward/bed the philosophy of virtual wards is that the person can be cared for in a place they call home, at ZP we see that virtual wards are a benefit for the patient, and should not be seen as simply a cost saving for the care provider; though the later is also true.
As listed above the three elements of virtual wards are:
1) People - The patients, carer and health care providers are coordinated through technology.
2) Place - The patient is primarily at home and remotely monitored from home.
3) Technology - The patient maybe remotely monitored, for example by pulse oximetry
At ZP we see our Sensor to API platform can be part of the Virtual Wards Strategy as our ability to sense clinically relevant analytes in handheld technology and send the data to the Cloud allows for decentralized testing but also ensuring the flow of clinical testing into the Virtual Ward IT System so it can be combined with the patients' data.
