Table 2.
Baseline demographics of virtual ward and hospital patients
| Baseline demographics | Patients admitted only to the hospital (n=350) |
Patients admitted to virtual wards (n=318) |
P value |
| Percentage of female patients | 54.6% | 54.7% | |
| Median age (years) | 72 | 71 | |
| Median Clinical Frailty Score | 4 | 4 | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with pneumonia as their primary diagnosis description | 70 (20%) | 61 (19.2%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as their primary diagnosis description | 63 (18%) | 55 (17.3%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with COVID-19 as their primary diagnosis description | 38 (10.9%) | 33 (10.4%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with atrial fibrillation as their primary diagnosis description | 30 (8.6%) | 27 (8.5%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with heart failure as their primary diagnosis description | 24 (6.9%) | 22 (6.9%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with hypertension as their primary diagnosis description | 15 (4.3%) | 14 (4.4%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with cellulitis as their primary diagnosis description | 11 (3.1%) | 11 (3.4%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients with chest infection as their primary diagnosis description | 10 (2.9%) | 10 (3.1%) | |
| Average length of stay in the hospital (from hospital admission to hospital discharge or to virtual ward) | 5.96 days | 2.89 days | *** |
| Average length of stay in virtual wards (from virtual wards onboarding to virtual wards offboarding) | – | 9.79 days | NA |
| Total number of hospital days used by patients | 2086 | 920 | |
| Total number of virtual wards days used by patients | – | 3114 | |
| Average length of care in both hospital and virtual wards | 5.96 days | 12.96 days | *** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with diabetes | 86 (24.6%) | 47 (14.8%) | ** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with hypertension | 159 (45.4%) | 103 (32.4%) | *** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with chronic heart disease | 123 (35.1%) | 36 (11.3%) | *** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with chronic kidney disease | 51 (14.6%) | 2 (0.6%) | *** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | 128 (36.6%) | 81 (25.5%) | ** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with asthma | 39 (11.1%) | 8 (2.5%) | *** |
| Number (percentage) of patients with learning disability | 5 (1.4%) | 1 (0.3%) | |
| Number (percentage) of patients being readmitted to the hospital within 6 months after discharge | 108 (30.9%) | 128 (40.3%) | * |
| Number (percentage) of patients being alive on the follow-up date of 30 April 2023 | 275 (72.4%) | 275 (86.5%) | * |
Number of stars resulting from the p-value obtained from a paired t-test: *if 0.01≤p-value<0.05; **if 0.001≤p-value<0.01 and ***if p-value<0.001. For comorbidities, only those above 2% are shown.