'It was absolutely brilliant': Limerick hospital's 'virtual ward' allows patients to recover at home

University Hospital Limerick has treated more than 1,000 patients via a remote technology kit, freeing up thousands of inpatient beds

Virtual ward patients take home a technology kit, including a tablet and medical diagnostic equipment that links them with the central hub in UHL, allowing for 24/7 monitoring. Picture: Dan Linehan

More than 1,000 patients have been treated at home via an acute virtual ward at University Hospital Limerick, a move which has helped the hospital free up “valuable” 10,603 inpatient beds.

Since the ward opened in July 2024, a total of 1,128 patients have been "onboarded" thanks to the remote technology allowing them to be treated and monitored safely from their homes.

According to the HSE Mid-West, the move has helped free up beds for more “acutely ill” patients across general medicine, surgery referral pathways, and specialised referral pathways (including cardiology, respiratory, TIA, gynaecology and orthopaedic).

Virtual ward patients take home a technology kit, including a tablet and medical diagnostic equipment that links them with the central hub in UHL, allowing for 24/7 monitoring.

According to the HSE, the average "length of stay" is about six-seven days. Once discharged, the patient simply returns the kit to UHL via registered post.

“Based on feedback, patients are very happy, rating the experience as 'very good', and awarding an average 4.8 out of five for patient safety,” the HSE Mid-West noted.

One of its patients, Shannon resident Margaret Curtin, 77, continued recovering from home after having spent a night in ED with bronchial pneumonia.

“Two doctors came to me on the ward and asked if I would like to go home, and then the virtual ward nurses came to explain how the system works. I’m glad my daughters were with me because they understood what had to be done, and before long we were on the way home,” Ms Curtin said.

“Every morning and evening, my daughter helped me use the kit to take my blood pressure, temperature and heart rate, and all that information goes to the hospital automatically through the tablet. 

"Then I had two follow-up calls from the nurses on the ward every day, and they would go through the results, and ask me how I was feeling, and after a week, it was all done. It was absolutely brilliant — I felt very well looked after,” she said.

Ms Curtain added the virtual ward was the “perfection” option with “how busy things are in hospitals these days”.

Along with St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin, UHL was at the vanguard of acute virtual wards in Ireland, opening in mid-2024 for cardiology and respiratory patients.

The programme, in collaboration between the HSE’s National Strategical Programmes, eHealth offices and European virtual ward IT specialists Doccla, has since extended to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore.

Chief director of nursing and midwifery for HSE Mid-West Acute Hospitals, Ber Murphy, said: “There are obvious advantages for home-based treatment, especially for older people who live a distance from the hospital. 

"Over the lifetime of the service, we’ve steadily increased the number of pathways, and we’ll continue to use and expand this important service, with an ongoing increase in patient-specific pathway development.”