Home-Based Primary Care: The Future Is Here
<p>Severe or chronic illness, frailty, or functional limitations make it difficult for millions of Americans to leave their homes to do things most of us take for granted: shopping in the grocery store, dining in a restaurant, or seeing a doctor for routine medical care. Some end up in emergency departments and are hospitalized for problems that could have been avoided had they had access to primary care.</p><p>A new Commonwealth Fund report describes how home-based primary care practices can help such vulnerable patients. These practices typically deploy interdisciplinary care teams to people’s homes and respond rapidly to urgent needs—a holistic approach that has yielded dramatic savings in pilot programs. </p>
<p>Drawing on interviews with leaders of six home-based primary care practices around the country, researchers Sarah Klein, Martha Hostetter, and Douglas McCarthy provide an overview of the key attributes of successful practices, the payment models underpinning them, and the barriers to spread, including recruiting and training sufficient numbers of primary care providers and social workers.</p>