OSF announces new partnership for Hospital at Home Service
OSF HealthCare is partnering with Medically Home Group, Inc. to establish an Acute Care at Home Program, which will enable Peoria-based OSF HealthCare to provide hospital-level, high-acuity care to patients in the comfort and convenience of their own homes. OSF has selected for a partner, a company that’s quickly becoming the leader in hospital at home services, having announced earlier this month that it has attracted $110 million from strategic investors including Baxter International Inc., Global Medical Response (GMR) and Cardinal Health. Cardinal Health, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente are providing additional capital on top of their previous investments, demonstrating confidence in the growing expansion of the model nationwide.
In January 2021, OSF HealthCare opened its OSF OnCall Digital Health building – essentially a hospital without the bricks and mortar. This new program will serve as an extension to OSF’s current digital health capabilities, offering hospital-level services at home to even more patients who would otherwise require hospitalization for serious illnesses including chronic diseases (such as heart failure and COPD), infections (such as pneumonia and cellulitis), and post-surgical hospitalizations, as well as for COVID-19.
Under the program, OSF HealthCare physicians and nurses in a medical command center will monitor and care for patients in their homes 24/7. Patients will have access to hospital-level medical services (ranging from IV therapies, oxygen treatments, and lab tests – even X-rays and ultrasounds) without having to leave their homes, and without the disruption, stress, and potential isolation that can be experienced by those hospitalized.
Clinical studies have shown that home hospitalization delivers improved patient outcomes, including: lower mortality rates and a reduced risk for readmissions along with higher patient and clinician satisfaction, and increased cost savings. Patients of OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria will be the first to have the OSF OnCall Hospital at Home option starting in the summer, with plans to extend the program.
Medically Home is decentralizing the delivery of patient care with a platform that provides a command center and technology that manages the logistics and coordination of all care in the home to enable safe, high-acuity care for patients with serious or complex illness. The platform also offers decision support to clinicians caring for those patients, and the collection and proper handling of patient vitals and other data, integrating them into the patient’s electronic medical record.
“Medically Home’s model is designed to enable health systems to safely shift lower and higher-acuity medical care from hospitals to patients’ homes where they prefer to receive it and when they need it,” said Brandi Clark, vice president of Digital Care, OSF OnCall. “We are excited to be able to offer this new and enhanced service later this year as we continue to work to do what is best for patients in the communities we have been called to serve.”