St. Michael's Hospital, 10/01/2014
A virtual ward, a new model of care that provides support to
high–risk and complex patients in the community for a few weeks after
discharge from hospital, did not prevent hospital readmissions as hoped
in a clinical trial in Toronto. Hospital readmissions are common and
costly and no intervention has reliably reduced them. Virtual wards,
pioneered in Britain 10 years ago, were thought to have the potential to
reduce readmissions, but had not been rigorously evaluated by
researchers. Dr. Irfan Dhalla, a physician at St. Michael’s Hospital,
led a randomized trial in Toronto to determine whether a virtual ward
could improve health outcomes and reduce readmissions in a high–risk
population. The results of the trial were published today in the Journal
of the American Medical Association. Read More
