HIMSS22: 4 Considerations for the Future of Hospital-at-Home Programs

Healthcare leaders anxiously look ahead to what acute care for patients in the home will look like after the public health emergency. A healthcare model for providing acute care for patients in the comfort of their homes, hospital-at-home programs have been used for decades in the U.S. Pioneered and trademarked by Johns Hopkins University, these programs have grown over the years and expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s in large part due to a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for acute hospital care at home, with some 92 systems and 203 hospitals in 34 states approved as of early March. “If you would have asked me in November [2020], what’s the number of hospitals that would go after Hospital-at-Home waivers [USA CMS], I think folks would have said maybe 40 on a good day and we’re up to over 186! And more are applying,” said Dr. Bruce Leff, who led the initial hospital-at-home study and model at Johns Hopkins, in the HIMSS paper “Crisis as a Catalyst for Innovation,” which studied the program in different systems.