Economic evaluation of the Liverpool heart failure virtual ward model.

Background: A virtual ward (VW) supports patients who would otherwise need hospitalization by providing acute care, remote monitoring, investigations, and treatment at home. By March 2024, the VW programme had treated 10 950 patients across six speciality VWs, including heart failure (HF). This evaluation presents the economic assessment of the Liverpool HF VW.

Telehealth-aided outpatient management of acute heart failure in a specialist virtual ward compared with standard care.

Aims: The aim of this propensity score matched cohort study was to assess the outcomes of telehealth-guided outpatient management of acute heart failure (HF) in our virtual ward (HFVW) compared with hospitalized acute HF patients.

Methods And Results: This cohort study (May 2022-October 2023) assessed outcomes of telehealth-guided outpatient acute HF management using bolus intravenous furosemide in a HF-specialist VW. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed using logistic regression to adjust for potential differences in baseline patient characteristics between HFVW and standard care [Get With The Guidelines-HF score, clinical frailty score (CFS), Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI), NT-proBNP, and ejection fraction].