To map evidence on virtual wards (VWs) for adults presenting to emergency departments or admitted with acute conditions, including programme design, clinical and safety outcomes, costs, user experiences, and qualitative findings.
Approach:
Review design: A scoping review guided by PRISMA-ScR, using narrative synthesis.
Search: Searched MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane, CINAHL, Web of Science, and PubMed for publications through 28 February 2025.
Eligibility: Included English-, Dutch-, French-, or German-language studies of adults receiving short-term, technology-enabled hospital-level care at home after ED referral or early discharge. COVID-19 studies and several non-acute or non-hospital-at-home care models were …
Outcomes: Examined clinical and safety outcomes, length of stay, escalation of care, costs and resource use, daily functioning, implementation factors, and patient, carer, and staff experiences.
Key Findings:
The supplied context describes the review rationale and methods but does not report the included-study count or review results.
The review was designed to assess both admission-avoidance and early-discharge virtual ward models.
Interpretation:
The review addresses evidence on technology-enabled hospital-level acute care delivered at home, including clinical, safety, economic, and experience-related outcomes.
Limitations:
The provided article context ends during the methods section and does not include study-selection results, findings, or the authors’ stated limitations.
The review restricted eligibility by language and excluded COVID-19 research.
