HEALTH FIRST Nurse Guadalupe Pantoja, BSN, checks the vital signs of Melbourne Beach resident and Hospital at Home participant Sheila Anderson during a recent scheduled visit. Recently, Health First's innovative program, begun during the COVID-19 pandemic, recently surpassed 1,000 total patients served and was spotlighted in Florida Today.

Health First’s innovative Hospital at Home program has now reached 1,000 patients as hospital leaders seek to grow the program as a permanent trend in medical care.

Begun in 2021 as a way to open hospital space for COVID-19 patients, the “hospital outside of the hospital” model was operationalized by Health First before nearly any other healthcare system in the state of Florida. It serves patients who are sick enough to be admitted to a traditional brick and mortar hospital but stable enough to have hospital-level services administered in the comfort and familiarity of their own home.

Brevard County’s not-for-profit health system is among a vanguard of innovators transforming hospital care – meeting patients “where they are.”

Leveraging wearable monitoring technology to track patient vital signs, advanced telemedicine and in-person care, Hospital at Home enables care teams to monitor, communicate and intervene with care plans consistent with the standards of care provided in a traditional hospital unit.

Joseph Lavelle, Health First’s Vice President overseeing the program, said the 1,000-patient milestone is both celebratory and inspirational. He and fellow Health First leaders are preparing for rapid growth in the coming years.   

“I’m incredibly proud of every member of our team that helped realize this milestone, from those who imagined and envisioned a model of providing acute-care, hospital-level medicine outside of the physical walls of a hospital to those who provide compassionate round-the-clock care and monitoring. Reaching 1,000 patients in three years provides us with an opportunity to celebrate, but more importantly, it’s a validation that what we are doing works well, and our success will reinforce a new wave of hospital-at-home care into the future,” he said.

Supported by a robust clinical infrastructure, the program allows patients presenting at any of Health First’s four hospitals to be evaluated for one of numerous conditions eligible for Hospital at Home, including, but not limited to:

• Urinary tract infection
• Simple pneumonia
• Cellulitis
• Congestive heart failure
• Dehydration
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Bronchitis and asthma
• Skin infections
• COVID-19

Patients for the program may receive:

• Transportation to their home if needed
• Support from a dedicated coordinator who guides their care
• Delivery and setup of all necessary equipment, medications, and supplies
• 24-hour remote monitoring of their vital signs by our clinical team
• Two in-home visits by a clinical team member
• Daily in-home or virtual visits from a nurse practitioner, physician assistant or physician
• Support to coordinate all needed services and follow-up appoints after discharge

Recent studies show that patients receiving care in their home environment experience fewer hospital readmissions and visits to the Emergency Department, less time in bed and increased patient satisfaction. Further, other hospital systems with similar initiatives have shown favorable outcomes for patients treated under the same model. 

READ the full feature in Florida Today HERE.