Virtual Care now fully integrates across all Monash Health sites.
The Virtual Care model came out of the necessity to allow teams to continue to collaborate, connect and work together to deliver patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic. It now allows us to deliver high-quality, timely care using the technology which already exists within our hospital.
Its ongoing use adds value across a range of clinical settings, including:
- Virtual Ward Rounds, Multidisciplinary Team Meetings (MDTs) & Nursing Handovers
- Virtual Consults
- Clinician to clinician
- Clinician to inpatient
- Virtual Education
- Virtual In-Home Assessments
- Specialist Consulting (outpatient) Telehealth Service
- Virtual Family Meetings
While the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the uptake of Virtual Care, its use and processes have been tried and tested for decades in remote medicine to provide essential services, connecting frontline care providers and specialist services located elsewhere. Virtual Care will never replace face-to-face patient care, but it works well as a complementary service to deliver effective care across the Monash Health community. The opportunities to expand and evolve the functionality of Virtual Care to assist in delivering the highest level of care are endless.
Virtual Care in everyday care
Virtual Care plays a valuable role in the delivery of patient care, and we have seen the benefits of this model across our clinical settings.
Associate Professor Michael Franco, Chief Medical Information Officer states, “with Monash Health being such a geographically and clinically diverse organisation, Virtual Care can help us extend our practice. For instance, it can enable a clinician at Dandenong to see, talk to and provide advice to a patient and family at Kingston.”
It enables us to:
- See our patients in a timely manner
- Consult with other specialties more effectively
- Work remotely or from an alternate site as needed
- Make better decisions about which patients require a transfer between facilities
- Engage with and keep families involved in patient care
He added, “it enhances and improves the quality of care we provide. This care model allows clinicians to use the tools available to keep patients at the centre of what they do and keeps teams working together.”
Virtual Care works in many settings, and now we want to investigate where we can best use it in our everyday activities.
We’re aiming to expand our Virtual Care Hubs to provide additional space and equipment to undertake virtual care activities. To support this, we have recently launched a device borrowing pilot program, which means greater device accessibility for clinicians while increasing device tracking and maintenance.
We want to hear from you!
We’d love to hear from you about how we can:
- provide better access to clinical and support services for you and your teams
- provide better lines of communication between teams to improve our patients’ journeys
If you’d like to discuss your experience or chat about how you can integrate Virtual Care into your workflow, please contact Sinead McKeown, Virtual Care Coordinator via email: virtualcare@monashhealth.org
For more information on the Virtual Care program, visit the Virtual Care resource website for videos, tips, tricks and training.
In the coming months, we will share more stories on the application of Virtual Care across our Monash Health sites.