University of Iowa Health Care reduces hospitalizations through ‘virtual hospital’ model – kwwl.com

IOWA CITY, Iowa University of Iowa Health Care has been able to reduce hospitalizations and maintain bed capacity through a virtual hospital model. It is a tool used by its Home Treatment Team.

The hospital said if a patient walks into the hospital with mild COVID-19 symptoms, the staff will give the patient an oximeter, take their information and then send them home.From there, the hospital will monitor a patients symptoms by calling the patient every day.

There is a group of patients who have gotten sicker at home, saidDr. Bradley Manning, a University of Iowa hospitalist physician. We were able to identify that, bring them into the hospital and deliver hospital care for them early so that they didnt get sicker.

Recently, the state has experienced a slight decrease in hospitalizations over the last few days, but Dr. Manning is not attributing the slight decrease to virtual care.

I think part of the reason the hospitalizations are declining is just because the infection rate is declining, and people are doing what they need to do to stay safe, said Dr. Manning.But it doesnt hurt that some of the health care systems have adopted this model to keep more patients at home.

So far, the hospital has treated 1,000 patients virtually. According to Dr. Manning, a few smaller hospitals in the state are using the virtual hospital method to treat COVID-19 patients.

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University of Iowa Health Care reduces hospitalizations through 'virtual hospital' model - kwwl.com