No Place Like Home: Bringing Inpatient Care to the Patient
New England Journal of Medicine, Catalyst, By Narayana Murali, MD and Travis Messina, August 2019
Online Case Study: http://bit.ly/2MlZNHZ
KEY TAKEAWAYS
-
Establish clear processes and a well-defined team. These processes will yield superior outcomes and a lower cost of care.
-
Establish an expansive list of targeted conditions for the program. The Home Recovery Care (HRC) model is beneficial for numerous patients; if the number of treatable conditions is limited, the program will likely exclude many patients who could greatly benefit from this model of care, limiting the clinical team’s opportunities to gain experience with this model. If a patient is inpatient-eligible and can be safely treated at home, Home Recovery Care should be considered as the primary treatment modality.
-
Technology plays a key role in developing a standardized HRC program. Today, electronic medical record systems do not have the ability to seamlessly document and disseminate critical information to a distributed care team outside of the inpatient setting. This ability is crucial in establishing a well-coordinated and seamless care delivery experience for the patient. Marshfield selected a technology-enabled partner that was able to integrate HRC-related information into Marshfield’s native inpatient electronic medical record.