There’s no place like home – just ask elderly patients in Albuquerque

January 12th, 2015

Home sweet home. Nothing can compare. It was true for Dorothy as she clicked together her ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz. And Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque, NM, has added its own “amen.”

Source: Chris Evans

The health system has a program named “Hospital at Home.” On the surface, the name doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. You’re in the hospital, or you’re at home, right? Not at Presbyterian Healthcare, where the Hospital at Home program targets older patients who have acute medical issues. The patients receive lab tests, ECGs, ultrasound, and X-rays in their own homes.

There’s no smoke and mirrors here. The patient satisfaction scores have been through the roof: 97.9%. And the good news doesn’t stop there. When their readmission rates and mortality were compared with similar patients who were inpatients, the rates for the Hospital at Home patients were lower.

Key to the program’s success is an integrated health plan, delivery system, and medical group, the health system’s leaders say. This set-up allowed the leaders to compare cost data across the health system. That comparison found a 19% savings among Medicare Advantage and Medicaid patients with common acute care diagnoses. With Medicare and Medicaid payments increasingly out of touch with actual hospital costs, such savings can be critical. For more information on the Hospital at Home program, contact Melanie Van Amsterdam, MD, physician leader, at [email protected] . You also can learn more by reading the new report from the AHA titled, “Your Hospital’s Path to the Second Curve: Integration and Transformation.”

Based on the success of this program, it’s time to start clicking your heels together and figure out where you can serve your patients where they most want to be: home sweet home.