While the concept of home-based care and remote monitoring of patients may not be a new concept, the importance of this option for managing patients has taken on great importance during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Courtesy Dr. Noel Deep
Dr. Noel Deep
We are currently living and working in unprecedented times and the impact of the pandemic is quite evident, and it plays an important part in every health care worker’s daily life. The high volumes of patients presenting to emergency rooms and urgent care/walk-in clinics and seeking posthospitalization visits with their physicians is stressing the health care environment. In such difficult times, the hospital-at-home model of care provides a valuable and viable option to provide appropriate care to those patients who may require close monitoring of their health without being hospitalized and using valuable inpatient resources that could then be used for the higher-acuity patients. As a physician who lives this every day and as a practicing internist and a part-time administrator, I welcome the hospital-at-home approach that complements the care provided in the emergency room, inpatient and ambulatory practice settings. I believe this type of approach to patient care would benefit those patients who, while being acutely ill, may not require the 24/7 intensive care that more critically ill individuals may need. As long as the patients are provided with appropriate telemonitoring devices such as a blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, and thermometer, and have access to video telemonitoring, the appropriately selected patients would benefit from this method of care provision for their acute illness.
Mental health benefits
I see several benefits for patients who can be triaged/assigned to this telemonitoring model of care. A patient would probably be happier being at home because they could sleep in their own bed and eat their own food and be able to walk around their house or even venture outdoors to enjoy the fresh air and nature. Being able to do these things will contribute positively to their emotional and psychological well-being.
For some elderly individuals, having access to the familiarity of their surroundings would mean these patients would have fewer incidences of hospital-associated delirium or falls. Additionally, they would be able to enjoy the company of their family members, which, during this COVID pandemic, is not possible in many hospitals. This would reduce emotional tensions for the patients and their families and the risk of transmission of infections to the patients and their visitors in the hospitals.
Freeing up resources
More importantly, this model would help physicians and hospitals provide the much needed care to the appropriate patients in the appropriate settings, thereby leading to decreased use of emergency rooms, health care workers, and personal protective equipment – all of which are currently in high demand.
Having a dedicated team of physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, and other health care workers available to monitor these home-based patients on a daily or more frequent basis, depending on their health status, would result in these patients receiving equivalent care to what they would have received in a hospital.
Another positive outcome of using this home-based care model in the pandemic is that it would free up hospital beds for non–COVID-19 patients who might need hospitalization for management of their acute illnesses or exacerbation of chronic health conditions.