Hospital at Home
The AHA urges Congress and the Biden Administration to extend the H@H program as currently authorized under the waiver to allow providers to continue to take steps to transform care delivery in a way that improves patient experience and outcomes while ensuring high patient safety. The Hospital鈥
Shortly after announcing its $8 billion purchase last week of home health care provider Signify Health, CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch proclaimed that the house call is undergoing a 鈥渞enaissance.鈥 With technology changes and the growing flexibility of physicians and nurses to care for aging patients鈥
Walgreens Boots Alliance has been busy expanding its health care reach into home health care. Walgreens completed its majority purchase of the home care technology platform CareCentrix for $330 million. The move extends the retailer鈥檚 reach across primary care, specialty pharmacy, post-acute care鈥
Memorial Hermann Health System recently began working with Contessa, a home recovery care service company, to deliver acute care, rehabilitation and palliative care to the health system鈥檚 patients.
The AHA voiced support for the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act (H.R. 7053 /S. 3792), bipartisan legislation that would extend the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services鈥 acute hospital care at home waiver program two years beyond the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency
AHA expresses support the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act (S. 3792).
The hospital at home model of care is emerging as an important strategy to improve value during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Service lines continue to be interrupted by COVID-19, with no end in sight. The health care workforce is stressed out and stretched thinly amid the so-called Great Resignation wave. Care delivery increasingly is being moved from hospitals to outpatient facilities and the home, thanks in part to an鈥
With the effects of COVID-19 expected to continue for some time, providers can expect many of the trends that developed over the past two years to continue. Care delivered in alternative settings to hospitals, for example, is expected to increase considerably before the decade closes.
If there is a silver lining in the pandemic, it鈥檚 that it rapidly accelerated hospital-at-home programs. HaH programs can sharply reduce costs while maintaining quality and safety levels and lowering readmissions with improved patient experience.