Activities

Building the Hospital at Home Community

With sites around the country, the Hospital at Home Users Group™ conducts most of its work virtually. Following a kick-off meeting in Washington, DC in May 2019, the Users Group has greatly expanded its activities and resources, keeping up with the growing momentum of the home-based acute care movement.  

The Users Group cultivates a vibrant online community for Hospital at Home news, networking, and discussion on Basecamp. Additionally, the organization provides a robust Technical Assistance Center with original content and contributions from the community in critical focus areas. Virtual Office Hours, small-group consulting calls facilitated by a Hospital at Home expert, are held monthly. 

Additionally, the group maintains work groups organized around program standards, quality indicators, and regulatory and reimbursement issues. Each of these is creating new frameworks to help guide the development of new Hospital at Home programs and to create a policy environment that is supportive of this model of home-based acute care.

Throughout the year, the Users Group–in partnership with the American Academy of Home Care Medicine and with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation—offers webinars that provide practical information and explore topics of interest for the field.  

The Hospital at Home Users Group proudly hosts a Virtual Annual Meeting, now in partnership with the American Academy of Home Care Medicine. This event is the largest gathering of the Hospital at Home community in North America, and an opportunity to share the latest in acute care at home practice, policy, and research.   

Research projects underway

The Users Group also conducts research about the larger Hospital at Home community and movement. Currently, there are two projects underway.  

Program Standards Survey: Through work groups and community input, the Users Group has developed a draft of Hospital at Home program standards. The goal of this project is to construct a clearer definition of the services, structures, and procedures of Hospital at Home programs. To further refine these standards and see how current programs compare, the Users Group has launched an anonymous survey of Hospital at Home programs nationwide. The Users Group would like to identify one person per program as a respondent for a brief, 15-minute survey. If you would like to represent your site, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ProgramStandardsSurvey. For questions or more information, please contact Gabi Schiller.

Minimum Data Set Survey: The Users Group is looking to build a Minimum Data Set of patient and safety data for Hospital at Home programs. This project helps the Hospital at Home community improve their programs and gauge how they compare to others. The Users Group would like to identify one person per site to submit a yearly extract of patient and safety data. The data would be de-identified and the site would remain anonymous. If you would like to represent your site, please sign up at https://bit.ly/MDSsurvey. For questions or more information, please contact Gabi Schiller.