Patty Fearneyhough Cowick hates being in the hospital.
“When I am in the hospital, they put you in a room where you can’t open a window and you can’t get any fresh air,” she said. “I just can’t hardly stand it.”
The 60-year-old Adams County resident fights for almost every breath she takes, due to congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Patty has experienced many hospitalizations since her diagnosis in 2012, except the last time.
The last time Patty needed hospital care she qualified for a new Blessing Hospital program called “Hospital from Home.”
Blessing Hospital from Home is one of two programs like it in the country, part of a three-year national research study to develop a process to deliver hospital-level care in the homes of rural residents. Blessing was one of two health systems selected for the study from among 700 applicants by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts.
“It is a great honor to be selected to participate in this research,” said Mary Frances Barthel, MD, MHCM, SFHM, FACP, Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Blessing Health System and Blessing Hospital from Home Principal Investigator.
How Hospital from Home works
The Blessing Hospital from Home program begins in the Blessing Emergency Center. If a person needs emergency care, admission as an inpatient, and meets the program’s geographic and medical guidelines, they are offered the opportunity to be considered for the Blessing Hospital from Home program. Then, through a randomized process, half of the patients who meet the guidelines and choose to be considered for the program are admitted to the Hospital from Home program while the other half are admitted to the hospital. The outcomes of the two patient groups will be compared and contrasted over the three-year study.
Blessing Hospital from Home patients receive two in-person visits each day from a registered nurse and have a daily telemedicine visit with a physician. The care team uses sophisticated patient remote monitoring technology designed especially for the care of patients outside of a traditional hospital environment. A medical-grade patient wearable device collects and reports data continuously, just as data would be collected and reported within the walls of the hospital. Patients and their care team also communicate through the technology.
Because the study is designed for healthcare in rural areas where internet connection can be challenging, Blessing Hospital from Home places a “hotspot” in the patient’s residence to establish reliable communication during their care.
How Hospital from Home helps patients
As many as 60 million people – one in five Americans – live in rural areas. However, 136 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, making development of rural hospital from home programs vital to maintaining and improving the health of rural residents who are having to travel longer distances for care.
In addition, hospital from home programs established in larger cities over the years have been able to deliver care at a lower cost and with a higher patient satisfaction rate than traditional hospital-based care.
“Hospitals can be uncomfortable places for some people,” Dr. Barthel said. “Patients are taken out of their routine, they may have a roommate, they're not eating their own food and it can be difficult to sleep at times. These factors can affect not only a person’s experience, but their recovery from illness or injury.”
“It worked great,” Patty said of receiving care from the Blessing Hospital from Home program team for three days. “I sat here in my chair and they came in, looked me over and listened to me. The blood work and everything was done right here in my own home. We did the video calls with the doctor and it was very nice. I was more comfortable here.”
Hospital from home programs also free up bed space for patients whose conditions require in-hospital care.
“It was a godsend,” Patty concluded. “I would recommend this.”