Hospital at Home Augmentation 2014

Grant Summary

A $1.6 million, four-year grant to augment the federal evaluation of the Hospital at Home health care model and lay the groundwork for widespread dissemination and implementation was approved by the John A. Hartford Foundation Board of Trustees. This grant complements a $9.6 million Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (the CMS Innovation Center)—one of just 39 awards made nationally—to deliver and test a version of Hospital at Home called the Mobile Acute Care Team at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY. The Hartford Foundation’s support of the Hospital at Home model goes back two decades, from its development at Johns Hopkins University, through multi-site testing, to early dissemination.

The Hospital at Home model defines treatment protocols for older adults who meet certain criteria and have specific illnesses that are among the most common causes of hospital admission in Medicare: congestive heart failure, community acquired pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and skin infections. It then provides care at home by a team of physicians, nurses, and others using mobile diagnostic technologies, intravenous medications, and supportive engagement of patients and family members.

The Hartford grant will add a control group and review of medical records to augment the evaluation of the model test by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It also will support a qualitative analysis of the model’s implementation process and, in collaboration with the Center to Advance Palliative Care, help develop key technical assistance tools and Hospital at Home content experts to assist robust future dissemination efforts

Related Grant Resources

• JAMA Internal Medicine: Association of a Bundled Hospital-at-Home and 30-Day Postacute Transitional Care Program With Clinical Outcomes and Patient Experiences