Proposals for the largest virtual hospital in Scotland mark the beginning of a new era for healthcare delivery, with technology at the center of shaping the future of hospitals.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC) has partnered with digital healthcare company Doccla to create 1,000 virtual ward beds, allowing patients to receive hospital-level treatment at home.
Taking healthcare out of traditional hospitals to the community and also further facilitating the digital hospital of the future is a huge step.
Are Future Healthcare Initiatives Changing the Path of Hospitals?
The modern hospitals initiative is backed up by Doccla’s real-time remote monitoring technology to track the patient’s health while they’re home. InnoScot Health’s Executive Chair, Graham Watson, collaborating with NHS Scotland, emphasized the importance of the project for the future of hospitals on many sites.
With remote technology, NHS Scotland will have better patient health insights that will help with quick decisions and lighten the load of hospital staff.
“The potential benefits of this technology-driven, innovation-savvy step also reach far more far-reaching – from the delivery of around-the-clock care and safer management of long-term conditions to shorter recovery times, greater patient participation, and streamlined workflows,” Watson said.
The hospital of the future has several advantages over established brick and mortar hospitals. For starters, virtual hospitals are able to raise bed capacity without constructing new infrastructure which allows hospitals to respond better to variable healthcare needs.
Virtual care would be able to facilitate up to 17% of hospital admissions, like UK’s NHS, which vowed to expand virtual ward capacity by 40 to 50 beds per 100,000 of the population by December 2023.
Hospitals and care systems of the future can also improve satisfaction of patients willing to undergo treatment in the comfort of their own homes.
Hospitals offer better care with remote monitoring and linked data analytics, and physicians can do virtual ward rounds and visit patients in person when needed, leading to better health outcomes and quicker recovery, making the future of hospitals advanced.
smart hospital beds of the future are cheaper than traditional models, with expenses of implementing virtual care being significantly lower compared to the building of new hospital centers, and moreover, it is a practical option for healthcare systems.
Future of Hospitals and Digital Care
The virtual care shift affects the hospitals and care systems of the future with services being tailored based on patients’ demands and desires. NHS GGC and Doccla believe this partnership will be a new standard of virtual hospital care in Scotland, in line with the smart hospital beds of the future.
“This partnership would allow us to deliver the right care in the right place for our patients, helping us transform and shape our NHS today and tomorrow,” NHS GGC Chief Executive Jann Gardner said.
The project’s built on Scotland’s historical progress, with plans to present virtual care, including a significant increase in virtual hospital beds by 2026. With Scotland pushing for more innovation, the country is headed towards a future with healthcare that is smarter, faster, and more personalized, while putting efforts to create the digital hospital of the future.
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