The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Austin Health have been jointly selected to lead Victoria’s first Virtual Hospital Pilot – an initiative focused on improving access to specialist care and helping patients receive care closer to home, including across regional Victoria.
Key points
- The Virtual Hospital Pilot is an innovative program that uses digital technology to deliver hospital-level specialist care to patients at other hospitals, or in their homes.
- The pilot will include virtual wards, ward rounds, and a foetal medicine service.
- The pilot is running from December 2025 to June 2026 and will be evaluated to inform future models of care.
What we do
The Virtual Hospital Pilot uses digital technology - including video, phone and remote monitoring devices - to deliver hospital-level specialist care to patients in their homes or in their local hospitals, including hospitals in regional areas.
It expands access to specialist care, supporting the RMH and Austin Health to deliver safe, timely, and more equitable care to more patients across Victoria, while helping patients stay closer to home and reducing unnecessary travel.
The pilot started in December 2025 and will run until June 2026. Care is provided by specialist clinicians and delivered in line with existing hospital clinical governance and safety frameworks.
In the initial stages of the pilot, the RMH will be delivering the following services, in partnership with other health services:
-
virtual ward rounds to help provide specialist care to patients receiving inpatient hospital care in parts of regional Victoria;
-
a virtual foetal medicine service, delivered in partnership with the Royal Women’s Hospital
-
a virtual ward to support eligible patients to be discharged home sooner following treatment for certain heart conditions, with their care team able to monitor their recovery progress remotely
A dedicated Ambulance Victoria (AV) representative will also be based within the RMH's DCC to support ambulance and health service capacity and demand coordination as part of the pilot.
Our Services
Virtual ward rounds
The RMH will partner with regional hospitals to deliver tertiary specialist care to patients, working alongside local clinical teams.
The ward rounds will help patients receive specialist care closer to home and reduce the need for transfers to metropolitan Melbourne hospitals.
The ward rounds also support shared learning and collaboration with clinicians based in regional Victoria.
The virtual ward round will involve a clinical handover from local clinicians, virtual bedside engagement between the patient, local healthcare team and our specialist, followed by a debriefing between the care teams to plan next steps.
Virtual ward
The virtual ward is a bed substitution model for patients who would otherwise require multi-day hospital admission.
Eligible patients will be provided with wearable devices that enable remote monitoring, alongside daily virtual check-ins, coordinated by clinical nurse consultants.
These devices help monitor patients’ vitals and recovery, with data shared securely with the patient’s hospital record so their care team can monitor progress.
Only certain patients will be clinically eligible for inclusion for the virtual ward. Participation is determined by clinical teams and requires patient and family consent. Patients must also be comfortable and confident to use the devices that will be monitoring their recovery progress.
AV Capacity Management
A dedicated AV representative will be based within the RMH's DCC as part of the Virtual Hospital pilot.
This initiative will support ambulance and hospital capacity and demand coordination, helping ambulances get back on the road faster.