Home Care , Lab Tests, X-rays, Doctors AT HOME
24 hours a day
Medical visits
One
can call hoMed even for an ordinary medical visit at
home for common problems such as a febrile infection or a gastric upset.
During the visit, the mobile unit of hoMed can:
- Use mobile diagnostic equipment provided (Electrocardiograph, blood gas and biochemical analysis, radiology equipment e.t.c.)
- Administer medications needed urgently from the fully supplied mobile pharmacy.
- Administer IV fluids.
- Place urinary catheters or-and nasogastric tubes.
- Lance an abscess or repair a laceration.
- Stop a hemorrhage ( i.e. epistaxis).
- Aspirate bronchial secretions.
- Administer oxygen from oxygen concentrators.
- Take blood, urine and other biological material for immediate laboratory testing.
The urgent laboratory tests are completed soon after they are brought into the hospital laboratory.
Finally, all the necessary equipment is set up at the patient’s home
and is available in each mobile unit and ready for initiating any home
treatment necessary.
In other words full medical admission and treatment at the patient’s home.
So after an unscheduled call to hoMed the next possibilities exist:
- Medical examination, electrocardiograph, simple medical advice and possibly supplying a medical script.
- Simple therapeutic steps may be taken( injection, insertion of a catheter).
- Taking blood, taking an X-ray and re-examination scheduled with the results.
- Immediate initiation of Home Hospitalization.
Cases in which Home Hospitalization is immediately initiated are:
Á. Sudden and life threatening events.
(pulmonary
edema, bowel obstruction, acute anuria).
Treatment
starts immediately and the medical team does not leave the patient’s
home until the clinical state is stabilized or until decision
is made that the patient must continue treatment in hospital.
Â. Events, which are not immediately life threatening, but hospital treatment and intravenous medication are necessary.
(Serious respiratory tract infection, severe dehydration, epileptic fits,
intractable vomiting, electrolyte disturbances, severe gastroenteritis).
Treatment is initiated, an IV drip is placed, and the initial antibiotic
doses are administered, blood and urine specimens are obtained for laboratory
analysis and the medical team leaves.
The
next visit will be organized for the team of the next shift, unless the
patient presents a new symptom or some complication, when an emergency
visit will occur.
C. Cases of diagnostic doubt
(abdominal pain with vomiting which could develop into acute pancreatitis). Home Hospitalization starts, collection of blood and urine specimens is completed and the medical team leaves. The next visit (which could be in the middle of the night) will depend on the results of the laboratory tests and on the patient’s clinical progress (with in-between communication over the phone). If all is well, the next visit will be done in the next shift.