The Acute Hospital Care At Home Waiver And The Future Of Hospital At Home In The US

HaH provides acute hospital-level care in a patient’s home by bringing all critical elements of care—physician, nursing, and other clinical team members, diagnostics, therapeutics, and appropriate technology—to a patient’s home. Work on HaH in the US was initiated in the mid-1990s by geriatricians interested in ameliorating iatrogenic complications and safety deficiencies associated with traditional hospital care. HaH has been demonstrated to provide safe, high-quality care in dozens of clinical trials, including a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center study. Compared with traditional hospital care, HaH results in better quality and care experience for patients and their family members and lower postacute health service use, costs, and adverse outcomes, including mortality.