Pneumonia virtual ward helps people with treatment and recovery at home

A community acquired pneumonia (CAP) virtual ward is live at Leicester NHS Trust to provide enhanced monitoring, assessments and interventions for patients diagnosed with pneumonia. By using Spirit Health’s remote patient monitoring platform Clinitouch, these patients can continue their treatment and recovery at home.

Aims & Objectives

• To enable safe, supported discharge from hospital for people diagnosed with CAP
• To empower patients to manage their plan of care in their home environment
• To relieve hospital pressures by helping to free up bed capacity where appropriate

How it works

• Patient - Referred by a consultant at the hospital and discharged from hospital and provided with equipment. At home, the patient answers CAP-related questions and records observations for blood pressure, oxygen and temperature using Clinitouch.
• Clinitouch - The platform has unique algorithms that automatically analyse and risk-score the data. It will highlight when any patient moves outside the agreed parameters.
• Specialist Pneumonia Intervention Nursing (SPIN) Team - Remote monitor the patients daily using the information the patients submit on Clinitouch. If the patient is flagged as amber or red on Clinitouch, interventions are made. Red flags include blue lips or face, coughing up blood, difficultly breathing, little or no urine output, pain in chest and severe breathlessness at rest.

Leanne Small, Specialist Pneumonia Intervention Nurse Lead at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, comments:

"Virtual wards help us to get patients with pneumonia home sooner than their estimated date of discharge.

"Being remotely monitored using Clinitouch has given them more confidence in their recovery at home."

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