Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have received a $20 million gift from Richard “Dick” Levy, PhD, to fund an initiative to shift care from the hospital to patients’ homes.
Dr. Levy is a 1960 Dartmouth graduate and former biotech executive. Dartmouth Health announced the gift Sept. 29, per a news release shared with Becker’s.
Dartmouth Health at Home will create a set of coordinated home services, including primary and palliative care at home and a new Family Caregiver Institute. The institute will offer hands-on caregiver training, help navigating resources and access to home care aides. The initiative will also set up a formal coordination framework between Dartmouth Health and Geisel.
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice will contribute expertise in care delivery design, organization, financing and evaluation, with the goal of keeping the program sustainable and building a model that can scale nationally.
The initiative grew out of the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator, which the Levys funded in 2020. The incubator drew more than 156 ideas and funded 22 projects, most of them focused on care and caregiver support at home.
Dr. Levy served as the main caregiver for his wife, Susan Levy, who had Lewy body dementia and died in 2023. He said keeping patients at home can improve care and lower hospital costs. “It is absolutely the right thing to do,” Dr. Levy said in the release.
Nathan Goldstein, MD, chair of Dartmouth Health’s department of medicine, noted that 20% of older adults live in rural areas.
“As the nation’s most rural academic medical system, Dartmouth Health has a unique opportunity to lead a home healthcare revolution,” Dr. Goldstein stated.
