Internship project: Evaluating the sustainability, effective and safe use of virtual care technologies, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

Opportunity

This project aims to extend a planned trial of a new remote health monitoring technology at Northern Health to monitor discharged hospital patients at high risk of health degradation and subsequent multiple readmissions to the hospital within twelve months. A framework of measures to evaluate the sustainable, effective and safe use of virtual care models during and after the COVID-19 pandemic will be developed. This project will also contribute to addressing the knowledge gap on effective ways of implementing remote monitoring initiatives by enabling systematic data collection from both a clinical and end-user perspective. This will inform clinicians as to effective and safe adoption strategies.

Project Objectives

This proposal aims to extend a planned trial of a new remote health monitoring technology at Northern Health to monitor discharged hospital patients at high risk of health degradation and subsequent multiple readmissions to the hospital within twelve months. These trials will be part of the Patient Watch service running at Northern Health under the broader Staying Well Program (SWP), which focuses on reducing hospital re-admissions, by monitoring and actively supporting at-risk patients in the community.

Through these trials, the project will aim to develop a framework of measures to evaluate the sustainable, effective, and safe use of virtual care models during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will also contribute to addressing the knowledge gap on effective ways of implementing remote monitoring initiatives by enabling systematic data collection from both a clinical and end-user perspective. This will inform clinicians as to effective and safe adoption strategies.

The objectives of this proof-of-concept project are to develop a framework for home-based models of care and analyse the requirements for remote monitoring services. The comparative evaluation of virtual care models with traditional acute presentation data will advance the clinical information available to health professionals, refine service models, and inform support and care service planning.

The project will:

• Develop a framework of measures to evaluate the sustainable, effective and safe use of virtual care models and design corresponding systematic pre and post data collection methods.
• Undertake remote in-home data collection, as well as pre-post implementation quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews involving the health professionals, patients and consumers involved in this trial.
• Report on findings from the research including the benefits and challenges around implementing remote patient monitoring services during the COVID-19 pandemic.