Hospital Care with the Comforts of Home

Patients with chronic illness can receive hospital-level care in their homes under a care model implemented by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Hospital. 

The program targets an aging population with chronic illness, including conditions like heart failure, pneumonia, asthma, COPD, and infections. 

It began as a randomized controlled trial to evaluate its effectiveness in lowering costs while improving care. The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that home hospital care reduced cost, utilization, sedentariness, and readmissions. In addition, across Mass General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, the approach can improve patient access by freeing up beds for other, more critical patients.

Since its launch in 2017, the model has treated over 1,000 patients, making it one of the nation’s busiest programs. 

It includes daily medical-level physician visits, as well as twice-daily scheduled nursing care, operated at both hospitals by Mass General Brigham Home Care. 

After an average of 4.5 days, patients who elect home hospital care are discharged back to their primary care physicians, along with their home hospital records integrated through our electronic medical record system.

With the program’s quality outcomes are promising and have lead to broad interest in the care model. Teams within the Mass General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, along with Population Health, are working to make it available to more patients.

"This program has been a win-win—for the patients we serve and for our academic medical centers who face challenges with patient access. We’re thrilled to be working hard as a system to extend this program’s reach to benefit more populations."