Hospital-at-Home
Hospital-at-Home
As hospitals reconsider how and where they deliver care to patients, many are seeing the hospital-at-home model as a promising approach to improve value. Hospital-at-home enable some patients who need acute-level care to receive care in their homes, rather than in a hospital. This care delivery model has been shown to reduce costs, improve outcomes and enhance the patient experience.
In November 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched the Acute Hospital Care At Home program to provide hospitals expanded flexibility to care for patients in their homes.
Explore AHA’s growing repository of resources on hospital-at-home, including case studies and podcasts.
AHA Resources
Issue Brief: Creating Value by Bringing Hospital Care Home
This issue brief from The Value Initiative is a primer on how hospitals can provide acute-level care in patients’ homes, and highlights case examples of hospitals that successfully improved value through their home hospital programs. .
Members In Action: Presbyterian Healthcare Services
Presbyterian Healthcare Services found that treating patients at home helps prevent the onset of delirium, reduces fall risk, reduces the risk of infection and allows for increased mobility. Their Hospital at Home program bolstered the hospital’s response to COVID-19 by enabling PHS to triple their capacity for at-home admissions and free up hospital beds for patients that needed them most.
Members In Action: Mount Sinai Health System
Because of their existing Hospitalization at Home program, Mount Sinai was able to quickly start a new program, Completing Hospitalization at Home, to focus on non-COVID-19 patients and expanded to include low- to medium-acuity COVID-19 patients once adequate personal protective equipment was available.
Members In Action: Atrium Health
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Atrium launched a two-unit virtual hospital to free up hospital beds for the most complex patients and allow for some COVID-19 patients to recover in their homes, thus limiting community spread and stretching their capacity.
Members In Action: Brigham Health
Through its home hospital program, Brigham Health patients receive hospital-level care in the comfort of their own homes. Patients in the program experienced fewer clinical interventions, more physical activity and comparable patient satisfaction scores as those being cared for in the hospital. The program has also helped lower costs and readmissions.
Webinar: How the Home Hospital Model Improves Value during COVID-19 and Beyond
In this September 2020 webinar, presenters from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and University of Utah Health share data on the hospital-at-home’s effectiveness, and how their hospitals have implemented it before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Special Bulletin: Summary of New CMS Flexibilities for Acute Hospital Care at Home Program
This AHA Special Bulletin describes CMS’s new Acute Care Hospital At Home program, which provides additional regulatory flexibility for hospitals to treat patients requiring acute inpatient admission in locations outside the hospital, including their homes.
Webinar Series
Interested in starting a hospital-at-home program? Get practical advice from HaH leaders in this webinar series that covers all aspects of implementing a HaH program. The webinars are part of our partnership with the Hospital at Home Users Group and the American Academy of Home Care Medicine. View the archives or register for upcoming webinars here.