As the first virtual hospital in NSW, RPA Virtual Hospital (rpavirtual) is committed to contributing to the evidence for innovative, effective, and sustainable models of virtual care through high quality research and evaluation.

rpavirtual has established a clear research agenda, research governance structures and introduced systems to attract research funding and manage relationships with research partners.

The RPA Virtual Hospital Research Steering Committee (established May 2020) provides overarching governance. The Committee meets monthly and is chaired by the Chief Executive, membership is comprehensive and includes members of the District Executive, the Director of Research, Clinical Directors, a consumer and tertiary partners.

rpavirtual is also represented as investigators or committee members on the national Digital Health Clinical Research Centre, the Centre of Research Excellence for Integrated Health and Social Care, and the Sydney Health Partners' Virtual Care Clinical Academic Group. All will present opportunities for collaborative research across virtual care sites in NSW and inter-state.

Current areas for research include evaluation studies of new models of virtual care including health economic evaluation, clinical trials to assess effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 drug treatments and safety; Long COVID, patient and carer experience with receiving virtual care; clinician experience with delivering virtual care; and remote monitoring digital health devices.  In addition Sydney District Nursing is conducting research in the areas of wound care, palliative care, HIV care, and patient engagement applications.

Our Research Partnerships

rpavirtual has strengthened its research capability through the establishment of a Research Hub that includes a mixture of permanent and temporary funded positions and the through the establishment of strong collaborative research partnerships. Research relationships have been established with the following partners:

• Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, University of Sydney
• Centenary Institute
• George Institute for Global Health
• NHMRC Clinical Trial Centre
• RPA Green Light Institute
• Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre, University of Sydney
• Sydney School of Health Sciences, University of Sydney
• Boden Institute, University of Sydney
• Susan Wakil School of Nursing, University of Sydney
• Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales
• RPA Institute for Academic Surgery
• Institute for Musculoskeletal Health