Hospital at Home
Soon, the doctor was managing a “hospital at home” admission for Blondin — an arrangement allowing him to receive intensive care and medical monitoring in the quiet of his own bedroom. Medical supplies and medications would be delivered as soon as possible, she told Blondin’s wife, Pamela. A nurse would come within the hour, take laboratory samples, and return later that afternoon and in the days to come. Ward would check in by phone, visit daily, and help would be available 24/7 if required.
“Hospital at home” programs fundamentally refashion care for chronically ill patients who have acute medical problems — testing traditional notions of how services should be delivered when people become seriously ill. Only a handful of such initiatives exist, including the Albuquerque program, run by Presbyterian Healthcare Services, and programs in Portland, Ore., Honolulu, Boise, Idaho, and New Orleans offered through the Veterans Health Administration.
Judith Graham in the Kaiser Health News/ USA Today.
I think its great that people get the type of care they are most comfortable with, with the added benefit of lower mortality rates.
This is a great idea! I like innovative ideas on how to improve care while lowering costs. When it comes to innovative ideas, one problem I see is that in many instances, innovation takes the form of maximizing against reimbursement. Another problem is that innovation often only tinkers around the edges of a dysfunctional system. An example of this is ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). I like the idea; I used to work for one. But, when ASCs were first opened, it was to save money on outpatient surgeries performed in the hospital. Why on Earth should it be cheaper to build a new building for day surgery rather than performing surgeries in a pre-existing outpatient surgery department at a hospital? It probably isn’t. But the ASC is a way to bypass hospitals and refuse to pay the bloated overhead of the hospital. So basically, an ASC lowers reimbursement but doesn’t really improve the efficiency of surgeries performed. If hospitals actually competed on cost, ASCs would force hospitals to improve efficiency.
This sounds great. I would much rather receive care at home than in a hospital, other things being equal.
So, there is only one program that isn’t VA? Wonder what the payment and state regulatory barriers are–for one thing, Medicare has long had a bias against certain drugs administered in outpatient settings.
I can see a future health care free market where there are roaming health-mobiles going from hospital-at-home to hospital-at-home, caring supplies, nurses, doctors, etc…..