On this month's cover, providers with DispatchHealth, an in-home health care company, attend to a patient. Founded in 2015, the company offers services throughout the country, including hospital-level care for conditions like pneumonia, heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Depending on patient acuity, DispatchHealth can send various clinicians to the home-such as NPs, physician assistants, and medical technicians-and can also provide mobile laboratory testing, imaging, and remote monitoring.
DispatchHealth is one of a growing number of companies offering hospital-at-home care, a model that has shown promise in improving patient outcomes and satisfaction and in reducing costs. "While the COVID-19 pandemic acted as an accelerant, the trend toward care at home has been underway for many years," says Mark Prather, MD, MBA, the company's cofounder and chief executive officer. "In fact, [at-home care] is part of a broader trend whereby we are evolving clinical standards of care and moving more care from the inpatient to the outpatient setting. As our population ages and health care consumers evaluate their care options, it is our opinion that an increasing percentage of the population will opt for care in the comfort of home."
In this month's AJN Reports, "What's the Future of Hospital at Home in the United States?" senior editor Jacob Molyneux takes a close look at the current state of hospital-at-home care-including the nurse's role-and the factors affecting its continued growth and implementation.-Diane Szulecki, editor