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June 7, 2022

Yale New Haven launches ‘Home Hospital’ option for Medicare patients

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Some of the members of the YNHHS leadership team who helped plan, create and implement the Home Hospital program, at a ribbon cutting on Monday.

Medicare patients who live within 25 miles of Yale New Haven or Bridgeport hospitals now have the option of hospital-level care at home, Yale New Haven Health announced on Monday.

The health system partnered with private firm Medically Home to debut the Home Hospital program, which offers short-term services to those who meet clinical and social stability measures. Other hospitals in the system are expected to add the program in the future, Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) said in a statement. 

The new program was launched in part to reduce overcrowding at the system’s seven hospitals as patients who delayed care during the pandemic fill beds and stay longer. 

Dr. Olukemi Akande, Home Hospital program physician co-lead and physician executive director of post-acute care, said, “With the growth of telehealth and other mobile health technologies, we can provide a high level of care and 24/7 accessibility to these patients.”

Telehealth video and in-person visits are the core of the new program, available to those with conditions like heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cellulitis. Doctors will “visit” the patients virtually once a day on a Wi-Fi-enabled tablet. 

Other providers will visit in person for services like in-home infusion therapy, phlebotomy and physical, occupational and speech therapy. X-rays and echocardiograms are available through  mobile diagnostic services.

Nurses and doctors staff the Home Hospital “mission control,” remotely monitoring all program patients. Each patient will also have a personal emergency response device.

Home Hospital programs have proliferated nationwide since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched its Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver program in 2020 to free up hospital beds for COVID-19 patients. The waiver was extended in April.

A survey of 130 CEOs found that health systems nationwide plan 20% more services outside of the hospital in 2022 compared to 2021, according to a report by the University of Colorado Denver and Guidehouse.

Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.

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