Opportunities and Challenges in Implementing a Virtual Ward for Heart Failure Management

The management of heart failure and post-heart surgery has been a major interest in healthcare. The cardiac unit has improved over time, undergoing significant innovations to improve the quality of services and patient outcomes. Researchers play a significant role in progressing innovative solutions, from co-design and idea conception to conducting impact analyses. These often involve identifying correlations between interventions and outcomes to improve the quality of care. In the context of heart failure, there is an ever-increasing workload that is impacted by the lack of resources, and staff, and the increasing number of elderly population with heart conditions and associated co-morbidities. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded these existing challenges. These challenges provide the impetus for seeking technological interventions. In the UK, The National Health Service encourages such initiatives where patients are looked after via digital technologies, under the Virtual Ward concept. This paper adopts a two-pronged approach, exploring the needs of the patients and clinicians and the potential of digital technologies to address those needs. By evaluating current challenges, the current state of the technology, and its limitations, this paper provides insights for future interventions that facilitate a Virtual Ward for the management of heart failure in the community.