Last week we were in attendance at the Discovery headquarters in Sandton on 14th July to see a live simulation of Discovery Health’s new Hospital at Home solution.
While Hospital at Home is an offering that the medical aid provider has been piloting since late last year, it is very much in the early phases of rollout, with the aforementioned demonstration also being showcased to a number of local healthcare professionals both in-person and virtually that evening.
The live simulation showcased how Hospital at Home would work in the real word, as well as offer a forum for professionals to ask more pertinent questions about the solution as it pertains to the South African context.
“Participants gained first-hand experience of just how sophisticated the system is and how safely and meticulously hospital-level care can be delivered in the comfort of a patient’s home,” explains Dr Botho Mhozya, head of Professional Risk and Hospital at Home at Discovery Health. Dr Mhoozya, who is pictured below alongside Dr Ronald Whelan below, also ran the live simulation of how the solution would be set up and operate.
Discovery Health says its Medical Scheme members have had fully funded access to Hospital at Home since January this year, as included in the Scheme’s hospital benefit rules. “The programme delivers the highest-possible quality of hospital-level care safely and effectively in a patient’s home,” it adds in a press release sent to Hypertext.
While Discovery Health is indeed pioneering this offering in South Africa, the company has also explained that it does not wish to be the sole implementer of such a solution locally, hoping that its rollout can be a catalyst for other healthcare and medical aid providers in the country to do something similar.
This as research conducted in other parts of the globe have shown that patients given care in the home environment improve far better than those that are generally hospitalised. There is the added benefit of freeing up real estate and capacity for hospitals to deal with more severe cases or critically ill patients. As such, Discovery believes Hospital at Home will complement, not replace traditional healthcare at facilities.
“Hospital at Home demonstrates the power of merging traditional healthcare delivery with cutting edge medical technology and innovation, resulting in the patient receiving the best possible care in the comfort and dignity of their own home,” notes CEO of Discovery Health, Dr Ryan Noach.
“In a nutshell, this unique programme provides a very attractive alternative setting of care – the patient’s own home – for a range of medical and post-surgical conditions that would otherwise require hospital admission. Importantly, the evidence shows that outcomes are as good, if not better, than in the case of in-hospital care,” he adds.
Prior to the demonstration, Dr David Levine, who is a General Internist and Clinician-investigator at Brigham Health and Harvard Medical School, spoke to attendees regarding Hospital at Home programmes, which have been tested out and trialled in other parts of the globe since before the pandemic.
Dr Levine pointed out that traditional hospital care settings often result in exposure to hospital-acquired infections, feelings of isolation, disturbance of sleep patterns, and potentially protracted lengths of stay. Added to this is data that shows that one in 10 patients reportedly experienced adverse events during their in-patient stay.
“At-home hospital care is a powerful lever for broadening access to affordable, high-quality hospital-level care and is in fact the most evidenced-based hospital service that exists.”
“It is also important to recognise that many events requiring hospital-level care can be managed as effectively in the home setting as in-hospital, particularly when enabled by cutting-edge remote monitoring technology. This often results in a quicker return to a functional level for the patient, and lower overall costs. Our analyses further show that costs are reduced by about 20% per admission,” highlights Noach.
Those Discovery Health members, as well as those not currently with the medical aid scheme, interested in Hospital at Home are advised to head to this portal where contact details can be found.
