This U.K. team brings hospital care into homes. Could more of these programs help Canada? – CBC

Convincing Canadians that hospital-at-home care is viable is an ‘uphill battle,’ says one expert

Mar 24, 2023

Health-care teams in the U.K. are providing hospital-quality care for people in their homes to help ease systems facing a shortage of hospital beds. And while versions of these programs exist in Canada, some experts say we need more of them to help ease our own health-care system’s bottleneck.

Hospital-at-home care is designed to look more like a visit to an actual hospital, rather than other community medicine such as long-term care. It can include ultrasounds, blood tests and IV treatments, sometimes checking off a list of services that might otherwise take several separate hospital stays.

Patients could receive one-time visits to assess their condition, or receive regular visits analogous to staying in a hospital for several days or weeks.

“Why make hospital or home binary? You know, you either come to hospital [and] get everything or stay home [and] get nothing,” Dr. Dan Lasserson, the clinical lead for the Acute Hospital At Home program in the U.K., told White Coat, Black Art’s Dr. Brian Goldman.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/hospital-at-home-uk-canada-1.6782506