Home Hospital ribbon cutting

Home Hospital program kicks off at YNHHS

Earlier this month, YNHHS began partnering with Boston-based Medically Home to kick off its Home Hospital program, for both the Bridgeport and New Haven regions. Co-led by Scott Sussman, MD, and Kemi Akande, MD, the program is designed to provide hospital-level (inpatient) care in the home for Medicare patients who meet clinical and social stability criteria. 

To participate in the program, patients must first be evaluated in person by an admitting clinician. Typically, this would be in the Emergency Department of Yale New Haven Hospital, Bridgeport Hospital or an inpatient unit. While patients are in the program, teams of physicians will provide care virtually through a telehealth center. Nurses will make in-person visits to patients twice daily, and advanced practice clinicians will see patients on days two and four.  

Patients selected for participation in the Home Hospital program will be treated with medications (including IV infusions), along with oxygen, nebulizers, diagnostic imaging, rehab and other therapies in the home as they would inside a hospital. Currently, the program is available only to Medicare fee-for-service or employee health plan patients in an inpatient status, rather than observation. All documentation will occur in Epic to ensure continuity of care. Additionally, as with a traditional hospital discharge, the virtual hospital team will provide a handoff to the patient’s primary care clinician when the patient is discharged from the Home Hospital program.

“We are excited to offer the first Home Hospital program in Connecticut,” Dr. Sussman said. “This patient-centered, innovative program allows patients to receive hospital-level care at home through a combination of in-person and video-based care.”

“This program supports our health system’s vision to provide access to high-value, patient-centered care and helps our hospitals manage capacity, so that high-acuity patients get into the right bed at the right time, said Kemi Akande, MD. “All the services that patients need, such as lab draws, IV infusions, mobile radiology and rehab services, are brought to the patient at home.”
 
For more information, contact Dr. Sussman or Dr. Akande.