Home Care , Lab Tests, X-rays, Doctors AT HOME
24 hours a day
Hospital at Home in Athens. Present limitations and future perspectives.
Papazissis E. Hospital at Home in Athens. Present limitations and
future perspectives. 17th World Conference of Family Doctors. Orlando
2004.
To design a real Hospital at Home service, one has to think what would happen if a hospital ward were detached from a hospital and removed to a distance, beginning from a few meters and increasing gradually. Some distance-related problems would be generated which would need their solutions.
The Hospital at Home service in Athens started in 1995 with the aim of providing at home complete hospitalization to acutely ill patients. In the beginning this was achieved with a huge effort from the doctors and the nurses, in a round the clock sleepless operation. Whatever had to be done to the patient if he were in a hospital was offered at home, regardless of the effort, the number of visits day and night, the time spent in the patient’s home and the extreme fatigue of the personnel. It was a bet that had to be won.
In the year 2000 the board of one of the biggest hospitals in Athens judged the Hospital at Home service successful and agreed to incorporate it as a department. From this time on it has been operating much like one of the wards with the 24-hour support of all the diagnostic departments, the ICU and the operating theaters of the hospital. The units also respond to requests for emergency home visits. If the patient’s condition does not meet the criteria for admission to the intensive care unit, he stays at home treated by the Hospital at Home department without coming to the hospital. We point out the beneficial feature that general practitioners are in this way escaping their traditional confinement to primary care and are becoming successfully involved in secondary care too.
The rapid development of telematics and the manufacturing of smart devices
to support telemedicine highlight the future of the Hospital at Home model.
However, thorough studies are required to confirm its safety and cost-effectiveness.