Challenging the norm: Delivering care in the first virtual hospital in Australia
Min Jiat Teng1, Olivia Martin1, Michael Wai1, Vincent Cram1, Sarah Whitney2, Miranda Shaw1 1RPA Virtual Hospital, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, NSW , Australia2Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Abstract
Increasing healthcare demands have become unsustainable for hospitals to provide quality patient care. Most care could be delivered to patients in the community to reduce unnecessary patient presentation or admission to hospitals. RPA Virtual Hospital is the first virtual hospital in Australia that delivers hospital level care in the community as a sustainable solution to increasing healthcare demands. Allied health have been paramount in leading and supporting these virtual models. The virtual fracture clinic started in October 2020 to provide clinical consults via video-call for patients with a simple fracture. The service has seen 700 patients with the most reported benefit being reduction in travel to receive care (87.6%). The psychology team has seen 43 long covid patients. Patients who were discharged have reported a within group reduction in symptom severity using K10 from severe (mean score 30.3) to mild on discharge (mean score 23.0) (47% response rate). Virtual rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary team consisting of allied health and a rehabilitation specialist providing an early supported hospital discharge for patients requiring rehabilitation. Patients (n=91) had improved mean FIM scores of 7 and EQ-5D-5L health utility score of 0.09, in addition to a lower service cost compared to in-patient rehabilitation wards (median cost saving=$2,631). Thus, virtual allied health care can effectively support patients at their own home or workplace while reducing health system costs and delivering positive patient experiences. These clinics are being evaluated with our research partners with the aim of disseminating our results in reputable journals and conferences.
Biography
Min Jiat Teng is a physiotherapist who established and is leading the Physiotherapy Services at RPA Virtual Hospital. His career goal is to establish sustainable, effective and equitable health services for people with musculoskeletal conditions by developing a system to integrate high-quality research into health services as part of usual care. He will be presenting on behalf of the wider RPA Virtual Hospital Allied Health Team consisting of clinical psychologists, allied health assistants, speech pathologists, dietitians, occupational therapist, social work and physiotherapists. Min Jiat is leading a randomised controlled trial to evaluate a virtual clinic for people with simple fractures.