ArticleBMJ open2024
Length of stay and economic sustainability of virtual ward care in a medium-sized hospital of the UK: a retrospective longitudinal study.
Article in BMJ open, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Beyond the Bedside: The Pivotal Role of Nursing Clinical Leadership in Developing Virtual Ward Care Through Telemedicine-A Review of the Evidence.Journal of clinical nursing · 2026Review
- Update in asthma management: A narrative review of recent advances, challenges, and future directions.Clinical medicine (London, England) · 2026Review
- Real-world outcomes from 2,905 episodes of hospital at home care: a propensity-matched cohort study.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Review
- Transforming surgical care: The launch of the UK's first surgical virtual ward for acute and elective patients.Surgical endoscopy · 2025Article
- Factors Influencing the Implementation of a Multispecialty Virtual Ward Program in the United Kingdom: Qualitative Exploration of Staff Experiences and Perspectives.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Economic evaluation of the Liverpool heart failure virtual ward model.European heart journal. Quality of care & clinical outcomes · 2025Article
- Article
- A 2-Year Retrospective Clinical Evaluation of a Novel Virtual Ward Model.Journal of primary care & community healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the length of stay difference and its economic implications between hospital patients and virtual ward patients.
designRetrospective longitudinal study.
settingWrightington, Wigan and Leigh (WWL) Teaching Hospitals, National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, a medium-sized NHS trust in the north-west of England.
participantsVirtual ward patients (n=318) were matched 1:1 to 1:4, depending on matching characteristics, to all hospital patients (n=350). All patients were admitted to the hospital during the calendar year 2022. OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome is the length of stay as defined from the date of hospital admission to the date of discharge or death (hospital patients) and from the date of hospital admission to the date of admission in a virtual ward (virtual ward patients). The secondary outcome is the cost of a hospital bed day and the equivalent value of virtual ward savings in hospital bed days. Additional measures were 6-month readmission rates and survival rates at the follow-up date of 30 April 2023. RISK FACTORS: Age, sex, comorbidities and the clinical frailty score (CFS) were used to evaluate the importance and effect of these factors on the main and secondary outcomes.
methodsStatistical analyses included logistic and binomial mixed models for the length of stay in the hospital and readmission rate outcomes, as well as a Cox proportional hazard model for the survival of the patients.
resultsThe virtual ward patients had a shorter stay in the hospital before being admitted to the virtual ward (2.89 days, 95% CI 2.1 to 3.9 days). Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and frailty were associated with a longer length of stay in the hospital (58%, 95% CI 22% to 100%) compared with patients without CKD, and 14% (95% CI 8% to 21%) compared with patients with one unit lower CFS. The frailty score was also associated with a higher rate of readmission within 6 months and lower survival. Being admitted to the virtual ward slightly improved survival, although when readmitted, survival deteriorated rapidly. The cost of a 24-hour period in a general hospital bed is £536. The cost of a day hospital saved by a virtual ward was £935.
conclusionThe use of a 40-bed virtual ward was clinically effective in terms of survival for patients not needing readmission and allowed for the freeing of three hospital beds per day. However, the cost for each day freed from hospital stay was three-quarters larger than the one for a single-day hospital bed. This raises concerns about the deployment of large-scale virtual wards without the existence of policies and plans for their cost-effective management.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.