Four-wheel drive vehicles for nurses? How UMass Memorial's hospital-at-home program works

Worcester, Mass.-based UMass Memorial Medical Center spent $2 million to build its own hospital-at-home program in six months, caring for nearly 750 patients in the first year-plus, Tradeoffs reported.

UMass Memorial launched the program in February 2021, hiring new staff and contracting with vendors for in-home services like meals, X-rays and internet, according to the March 23 story. Rather than hiring an outside firm, the hospital developed the initiative itself.

"If a nurse is walking between room A and room B in the middle of the winter, that nurse is not thinking to him or herself, 'Oh, gosh, I need a four-wheel drive vehicle,' whereas we do think about that," program medical director Constantinos Michaelidis, MD, told the news outlet. "We do make those investments."

Patient David Mercurio, 70, arrived home after being hospitalized with a tick-borne illness, via ambulance with a car with two nurses in the front, according to the story. They put a small white band on his arm to monitor his vital signs remotely. The wooden table next to his recliner held medications and a tablet for telehealth visits or to contact clinicians virtually in an emergency.

"This is the way I looked at it: They're going to give me the same treatment they're going to do in the hospital," he told Tradeoffs. "And I trusted them in the hospital, so why wouldn't I trust them at home?"

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