The Evolution of Home-Based Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned & Implications for Federal and State Policy

The experience during the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated reaching the day when care in the home is a common and widely available option for patients. The advent of the widespread use of telehealth, remote patient monitoring, virtual disease prevention and disease management, caregiver support, medical record sharing, and new practices by providers and patients can make this possible. A massive growth of home-based care models has erupted, spotlighting new models and those that existed before the pandemic. Care in the home also contributes to health equity by giving historically disenfranchised communities the option to receive care on their terms. It promotes trust and communication by removing institutional barriers and placing the interaction in a familiar setting. A recent national poll confirms this, finding that 70 percent of those surveyed are comfortable receiving care in the home citing that a familiar environment helps alleviate anxiety. 

In this report, Moving Health Home (MHH), a coalition of health care organizations with a bold vision to make the home a site of clinical services, explores the transformation that home-based care has undergone during the pandemic. Insights and findings from this report are based in part on in-depth interviews conducted by Avalere Health with leaders from organizations that have either based or adapted their clinical and business models to serve patients in their homes.