How FirstHealth is Improving Outcomes with Observation at Home

The OAH program is designed to increase bed capacity across the health system by discharging stable patients who can be managed at home via the program but would otherwise need to have stayed in the hospital if taken care of by traditional medicine.OAH offers multiple entities in the health system an alternative for some of the more stable patients occupying a bed. Once patients are referred to the program, a paramedic will visit them in their home the next day – exceptions are referrals from home health, which I will explain in a moment – where they will perform an in-person assessment that includes vital signs.Once the assessment is complete, the paramedic connects to a provider to complete the remainder of the visit via secure tele-video. FirstHealth uses Epic for these sessions.