Virtual hospital: key features, examples, and benefits of remote care

May 30, 2023

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Virtual hospital

Healthcare Business Analyst

Remote care marks a new milestone in healthcare digital transformation. Itransition’s healthcare software development experts help medical organizations build robust virtual hospitals and make healthcare more affordable and accessible to everyone.

A virtual hospital is a full-scale digital hospital providing various medical services online and enabling patients to avoid the stress and burden of traveling to a distant brick-and-mortar facility. VH increases healthcare accessibility, helping people with limited access to medical care.

Virtual hospital market statistics

of US healthcare providers enabled virtual visits in 2021

Statista

the CAGR of the global virtual care market from 2022-2027

Mordor Intelligence

projected US virtual care market revenue in 2030

Grand View Research

Virtual hospital architecture

A virtual hospital should work seamlessly with no bottlenecks or sudden outages, just like a typical healthcare facility. Logically, it consists of three major blocks: a patient side, a provider app, and a cloud server.

Patient side

Patient app

Smart connected devices

PHI (demographics, insurance, medical history, vitals)

Cloud server

Video streaming server (for messaging & video calls)

Data storage and processing

Billing/payment module

Virtual appointments scheduling

Hospital side

Care team app

Medical imaging software

Analytics (reports, KPI, stats)

Admin panel

Practice management system

E-prescribing

EHR

Laboratory software

Patient app

An app for patients enabling them to schedule and attend virtual consultations, message doctors about their symptoms, view treatment plans, and request medication refills.

Hospital app

An app for a virtual hospital care team (nurses and doctors), enabling them to consult patients online, evaluate patients’ tests and diagnostic procedures’ results, and manage treatment and medications.

Streaming server

A real-time video streaming tool for smooth audiovisual communication between patients and the virtual hospital care staff.

Data storage and processing module

A cloud-based tool for hosting PHI and consultation recordings and analyzing patients’ information, such as device-generated data and treatment plans.

Admin panel

A dashboard for virtual hospital’s IT specialists where they can grant users’ access to the virtual hospital toolset and enable hospital employees to view patient lists.

Get started with virtual hospital implementation

As a healthcare development company, Itransition delivers expert services that help ensure successful remote care provision for your medical facility. Our team offers:

Virtual hospital consulting

Our health IT developers and tech experts are ready to study your healthcare facility’s specifics and offer the best-suited virtual hospital structure and tools that will help meet your business needs and ensure efficient work.

Virtual hospital implementation

Our specialists will design and implement regulation-compliant solutions for optimal virtual hospital operation. In addition, we will ensure smooth virtual hospital integration into the existing digital infrastructure and deliver professional post-implementation support.

Main functionality of a virtual hospital

A virtual hospital is a complex healthcare system that covers patients’ care needs from any preferred location. The main virtual hospital functionality for delivering effective remote care services includes:

Virtual communication

Conducting regular check-ins and scheduled consultations with patients via telemedicine tools
Delivering on-demand clarification consultations via messages or video calls
Calling a local ambulance team in an emergency
Requesting refills and drug delivery (for patients)

Care coordination

Creating and editing treatment plans
Scheduling lab tests and diagnostic procedures
Scheduling consultations with specialty doctors
Monitoring the patient’s health state over time
Making treatment adjustments

Data analytics

Examining patients’ health state through dashboards with real-time data
Identifying symptoms and patterns in patients’ conditions with an AI-powered tool
Optimizing treatment plans based on AI recommendations
Notifying healthcare specialists of patients’ abnormal health parameters
Expenses analytics, automatically calculating and reporting the cost and time spent on each patient

PHI management

Adding and editing personal health data in the patient profile
Uploading medical records, lab and diagnostic results from other providers
Accessing care plans that encompass treatment plans and appointment reports
Logging new emerging symptoms and medications taken
Auditing the activity in systems containing or using electronic protected health information

Patient support

Accessing personalized in-app patient education modules
Consulting AI-powered chatbots for chronic condition patients
Activating improved accessibility functions (voice control, a text-to-speech feature)
Activating the larger font option

Billing management

Viewing insurance plans coverage, care bills for consultations, tests, etc.
Accessing benefit explanations
Paying bills online via a secure payment gateway

Data security

Enabling multi-factor authentication for patients and medical staff
Providing end-to-end data encryption for patients’ health information
Allowing role-based access to patient data
Providing secure data storage and patient-provider data transmission
Ensuring compliance with the healthcare industry regulations

Ready to implement a virtual hospital?

Types of virtual hospital services and treatment

A virtual hospital is a full-scale hospital with no physical location, meaning a patient can’t submit analyses or have surgery or other interventions in such a facility. On the other hand, such a hospital can offer a range of online consultations, allowing patients to contact doctors from any location. Here are several popular types of virtual hospitals and remote care options:

A general hospital

This type of facility works as a full-scale remote hospital, allowing patients to book an e-visit with a specialist doctor without waiting long for the appointment. In the US, wait time is one of the significant pain points accountable for patients’ health deterioration. According to the OECD report on health policies in the selected countries, 27% of US patients wait for their specialty appointment for over a month.

In such situations, telemedicine solutions can be a viable alternative, as they reduce the wait time and expenses for travel.

Scheme title: Healthcare wait times by country 2023
Data source: World Population Review — OECD report

Chronic condition management hospital

Some virtual hospitals are dedicated to managing chronic diseases, from which 60% of US adults suffer, according to the Centers for Chronic Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Such virtual hospitals deliver remote management of diabetes, cancer, chronic lung and kidney diseases, and other chronic conditions.

For chronic condition patients, a virtual hospital service is a life-changing solution. It helps provide faster access to specialty doctors, including mental health professionals. Such virtual hospitals can also reduce the rate of hospitalizations due to remote health monitoring capabilities via digital health devices.

Scheme title: Chronic conditions in the US
Data source: cdc.gov — Chronic Diseases in America, 2022

The leading causes of death and disability and leading drivers of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual health care costs

Adults in the US have a chronic disease

6 in 10

Adults in the US have two or more

4 in 10

Teleparamedicine hospital

Teleparamedicine hospitals have a team of doctors operating in a call-center environment, just like 911 specialists. The team takes incoming telecalls and consults clinicians and paramedics in the field, helping resolve complex clinical issues.

Teleparamedicine is a lifeline for small or rural hospitals with a shortage of specialist doctors on-premises. The external virtual hospital’s team can supervise the local staff and guide them through medical procedures in an emergency or when a patient is in a life-threatening condition. Remote specialists can help assess a patient’s condition on the go and offer an adequate treatment plan without delays.

Cross-boundary care and education

The virtual hospital lets patients seek advice from the world's best experts through secure telemedicine solutions. Moreover, patients can receive not only consultations but also full-fledged treatment.

For example, Proximy, an AR-enhanced telehealth solution from the UK, allowed a top US oncology surgeon to consult his colleagues from London during a complex surgery and ensure its success.

Vuzix-VSee, an AR telemedicine smart glasses, operates similarly. Using this tech solution, clinicians from Osaka Saiseikai Izuo Hospital working in the infectious ward can give and get instructions from their peers located in non-contaminated hospital zones. Besides, this tool allows surgeons to perform complex operations and educate themselves, enhancing their skills. Here's an educational video for a knee replacement surgery:

Real-life virtual hospital examples

Mercy has been operating in St. Louis, Missouri, since 2015. It is a bright example of a virtual hospital for rural dwellers living far from healthcare facilities. Mercy’s goal was to reduce the time patients needed to meet their healthcare providers and eliminate the need for sick patients to visit hospitals frequently. With expert teams working alongside local caregivers providing skillful monitoring and management, the hospital manages to prevent many health incidents.

We started with a small pilot of 50 patients in Washington, Missouri. In a few months, we began to see decreases in hospital utilization, patient satisfaction scores at 98% favorable and closing of gaps in care.

Annie Banister, RN

Executive Director of vEngagement at Mercy

The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) helps regional providers to treat or manage urgent and chronic neurological conditions remotely. The MGH Telestroke and Teleneurology services offer 24/7 access to neurologists seven days a week. US academic medical centers and healthcare providers partner with Mass General Hospital to create or modernize their own networks and streamline local stroke care. As of now, hospitals from Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, and Kansas have upscaled their neurology departments with MGH’s telehealth solutions.

GlobalMed has been in virtual healthcare for over 20 years. They deliver remote patient care in many specialties, from chronic disease treatment to pediatrics and teleparamedicine services. They provide a telemedicine platform with around 50 million virtual consultants, a set of connected devices, and integrated telehealth stations for delivering effective virtual care globally. The GlobalMed solution gained the trust of the US Department of Defense, serving as a telehealth provider for the military health system’s 57 hospitals and 400 clinics worldwide. GlobalMed's technology is also used in the White House and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

This international hospital provides non-emergency pediatric care in the comfort of patients’ homes. The service is available 24/7 and offers consultations from certified pediatricians and experts in pediatric neurology, oncology, and cardiology. Nicklaus delivers virtual care via a proprietary mobile app that supports online consultations from physicians or specialty doctors. In addition, MyNicklaus provides access to patient records, appointment scheduling, and a rich pediatric library. The tool also supports several bill payment options.

Virtual hospital integrations

A virtual hospital comprises a set of electronic systems that should work in harmony to ensure the healthcare facility works stably. Hence, virtual hospital solutions require smooth integration with other systems:

Key integration options

Patient-centered IoMT devices

EHR/EMR

Practice management system

Medical imaging and lab software

Patient-centered IoMT devices

These smart tools allow patients to manage their health at home, track their vitals, and share the data with their clinicians.

EHR/EMR

An EHR system is a go-to tool for a care team, providing comprehensive data on patients’ medical history, allergies, chronic conditions, contact data, etc.

Practice management system

Integration with the system streamlines and simplifies appointment scheduling and patient billing data tracking.

Medical imaging and lab software

This integration allows a care team to analyze radiology scans and lab test results quickly and adjust further treatment accordingly.

Benefits of a virtual hospital

Mitigated clinician shortage

The number of doctors and mid-level healthcare workers is decreasing. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) projects the shortage will reach between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034. A virtual hospital can become an efficient solution for preventing the lack of clinicians. Virtual care enables clinicians to accept more patients regardless of their location.

Improved patient experience

A virtual hospital allows patients to get medical consultations and treatment from their homes or any preferred location. As a result, it reduces the overall stress and burden of visiting a hospital and lowers the cost of services. According to a 2021 Statista study, most patients described their e-visits as great (47% of participants) or OK (46%).

Enhanced cost-effectiveness

Virtual hospitals can help reduce care costs for both providers and patients. For example, patients don’t have to travel to a facility and can save on trip fares. Besides, virtual appointments cost less than in-person visits. As for providers, virtual hospitals help them reduce the rate of unnecessary hospitalizations and readmissions.

Augmented hospital capacity

Patients usually remain in the hospital for post-recovery follow-ups. While such inpatients take up hospital beds and other resources, a hospital can’t accept other critically ill patients. A virtual hospital enables healthcare providers to safely send recovering patients home and organize virtual follow-ups with their assigned clinicians. Meanwhile, the provider can hospitalize more patients in need of urgent care.

Three challenges of virtual hospital implementation

Challenge

Solutions

Digital divide for patients

Patients can have insufficient digital literacy, which complicates virtual hospital access and use.

Working on your virtual hospital, create an intuitive, user-friendly patient app with a simple user experience. Besides, your software vendor can help you develop an informative user guide with screenshots and clarifications.

Resistance to change among doctors

Clinicians need help getting used to digital tools and the specifics of virtual appointments. For some, a new care model can bring additional stress and burnout.

To reduce the resistance, inform your staff about the virtual care model in advance. You can stress the benefits of virtual care for clinicians, including reduced readmissions and resource optimization.

Personal data security

Cybercriminals continue wreaking havoc in the industry, attacking healthcare organizations. Consequently, patients feel unsafe about engaging in virtual care.

A quality solution is backed by experts’ knowledge and skills. It complies with HIPAA and other regulations, ensuring PHI security. Cybersecurity consultants examine the solution to detect and fix vulnerabilities before the launch to prevent attacks.

Expand your healthcare service with remote care

With the spread of digital technologies in healthcare, providers have obtained the opportunity to expand their services and reduce healthcare access disparities, providing due care to more patients in need. Virtual hospitals proved efficient during the pandemic, and remote access to quality medical services remains critical for many patients today. Hence, engaging in virtual hospital development is a valuable effort. Connect with a reputable vendor to create a full-scale virtual hospital system and seamlessly integrate it into your medical infrastructure.

Launch a top-scale virtual hospital with Itransition

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FAQs

What is virtual care?

Virtual care is any interaction between patients and medical professionals that occurs remotely with the help of information and telecommunication technologies. Virtual care aims to facilitate or maximize care quality and effectiveness by bringing it to patients' preferred locations. Virtual care includes telemedicine solutions, telehealth apps for remote patient monitoring, and a regular landline phone for audio-only consultations.

What are the use cases of telehealth?

Telehealth is not limited to remote consultations with a physician or specialty practitioners. You can get a whole set of services, namely, physical and occupational therapies, treatment and follow-ups for behavioral issues, post-operative audiovisual consultation, and remote monitoring that helps patients manage diverse chronic conditions.

Service

Telemedicine software development: key features, integrations & services

Itransition offers end-to-end custom telemedicine software development and implementation services for healthcare organizations of any size and specialty.