Doctor Visits

Doctors with equipped medical vehicles are ready to visit patients 24 hours a day

Nurse Visits

Registered nurses visit patients at home to perform procedures such as stoma and ulcer care, wound care, catheter replacement etc.

Hospital at Home

The patient is treated at home as if he were in a hospital...

Hospital at Home - Doctor's visit

"Hospital at Home" is defined as a service that provides active treatment by health care professionals, in the patient's home, of a condition that otherwise would require acute hospital in-patient care. [8].

To reproduce "hospital conditions" hoMed has developed a model which includes regular daily doctors' and nurses' home visits, 24-hour duty of doctors and nurses and 24-hour operation of laboratories. Fast emergency vehicles, ambulances, efficient call center, experienced professional care givers who can stay with patients and telemedicine are some of the means used to counterbalance distances between patients, doctors, nurses, laboratories and other hospital facilities (Papazissis E. Advanced Technology permits the provision of Advanced Hospital Care in the patients' homes. In: IOS Press-Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. Amsterdam 2004;100:190 -199).

Doctors visit any patient who is "admitted" at home, at least once a day, usually in the morning.

1. The doctor performs complete physical examination and gets information about patient's course from the patient and/or those who he stays with.

2. Checks patient's record, filled-in by nurses.

3. Has telephon contact with other co-attending physicians and with the laboratories for any pending results.

4. Performs new laboratory examinations with portable analyzers, whenever it is necessary.

5. Takes blood and other samples for the laboratories

6. If doctor decides that modification of treatment is needed, he/she can start the new treatment immediately as all vehicles are equipped with complete pharmacy stock.

As soon as doctors return to hoMed's station they collaborate with the nurses on duty in the regular daily conference, where everybody becomes informed about the latest details of the clinical course of any patient treated in the "hospital at home" program.

Evening and night doctors on call are ready to visit any patient again, if necessary. Doctors on call have the duty to collect any pending results from the laboratories.

If these results indicate the need of treatment modification, the doctor informs the nurse on duty to make the modification at his/her next home visit. If this modification is urgent (e.g. extremely low serum potassium), any doctor or nurse who is closer to the patient's home, goes promptly to the patient and corrects drips and medications. Fleet satelite management system is available at hoMed's headquarters for optimum coordination of health professionals.

Continuous training of nurses is one of our doctors' most important duties. They have to show and explain to nurses any clinical sign they encountered. In this way we constantly improve nurses' clinical knowledge and diagnostic skills. This has proved to be greatly increasing the degree of patient safety as important disorders are earlier noticed and managed.

X-Rays at Home

X-rays are easily performed at home with the aim of digital technology without any patient discomfort. They are digitally developed during the visit and they can be send by e-mail to any recipient.

Bedside blood tests

Important blood examinations can be performed during a home doctor's visit in only a few minutes:

BUN, Glucose, Creatinine, Potassium, Sodium, Hematocret, Hemoglobin, Anion gap, Blood gases, Lactate, PT/INR, Troponine, BNP.

These blood tests help the doctor to promptly correct any severe abnormality such as water and electrolyte disorders, hyperglycemia etc. or to early diagnose life-threatening conditions such as MI or hypercapnia.