The trend in the decline of inpatient care has been parallel to the increase in Hospital at Home programs in the recent past. Leff et al. (2006) state that, “Hospital at Home is a care model designed to deliver acute medical care in the home as a substitute for an acute inpatient hospital admission,” (p. 1355). The justification for this trend lies in the fact that critical patients are more likely to experience high-quality care that has fewer complications, more satisfaction for both patients and families, and less cost than in the inpatient acute care setting.
The research carried out by Leff et al. (2006) showed that patients move away from inpatient acute care units to hospital-at-home care because the latter provides patients with greater advantages than the former. Relationship between the healthcare providers and the patients, the issue of safe care, comfort, and convenience are some of the major factors that influence patients’ use of inpatient acute care facilities. The underutilization of the inpatient acute care hospital experienced at the SBHS may not be caused by a lack of vigorous marketing strategies. Rather, it may be due to the lack of quality healthcare services provided at the inpatient units and the subsequent lack of satisfaction on the part of the patients. The management can undertake the hospitalist model of inpatient care.
The hospitalist model encompasses the use of inpatient physicians to effectively oversee the process of inpatient hospitalization and care. These physicians take on the fundamental task of supervising the patients’ medical and surgical procedures from the time of admission to discharge. Hence, once a patient is hospitalized, all the responsibilities of his outpatient physician are transferred to the inpatient physician. Harrison and Ogniewski (2004) state that, “the hospitalist model is a process to move patients from an office practice to an increasingly technical inpatient level of hospital care,” (p.310). The hospitalist model provides numerous benefits while at the same time cutting down the costs incurred by both the patients and the hospitals.
This model results in the matching of the patient need to the suitable levels of care, higher accessibility to physicians by patients and their families, and more timely communication between physicians and patients concerning treatment options, recovery progress, and discharge plans. In addition, the hospitalist model enhances the level of competence of hospitalist physicians. The net effect is a high quality of care for patients and higher levels of utilization of the inpatient acute care facilities (Harrison and Ogniewski, 2004).
Reference List
Harrison, J.P., & Ogniewski, R.J. (2004). The hospitalist model: A strategy for success in US hospitals? The Health Care Manager, 23(4), 310-317.
Leff, B., Burton, L., Mader, S., Naughton, B., Burl, J., Clark, R., Greenough, W., Guido, S., Steinwachs, D., & Burton, J. (2006). Satisfaction with Hospital at Home care. Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 54(9), 1355-1363.