A new paradigm in remote patient rehabilitation

The Virtual Clinic Direct service aims to reduce the period of rehabilitation for the patient, minimise the cost of care for the hospital/insurer and reduce levels of complication and readmission. The core objective of the service is to enhance the level of care that can be provided to patients by clinicians, community and support resources, by enabling better informed decisions to be made. A secondary objective is for the average level of patient self-care to increase significantly due to the VCD service. Broader objectives are for new streams of research into fracture management to be developed and for an outcome orientated approach to treatment to be established in Orthopaedic Trauma. The service mainly targets four categories of users: patients suffering from a fracture; clinicians; hospitals; and insurance companies. The service makes use of satellite communications data in order to provide uninterruptible communication and 100% coverage, which is essential to maintain the continuity of the patient experience and to allow the delivery of care. GNSS is also used to facilitate the measurement of patient behavioural compliance with prescribed activity levels. Moreover, geo-spatial data enables the service to dynamically inform stakeholders if appointments are likely to be missed and potential alternatives.