Hospital-at-home Integrated Care Programme for the management of disabling health crises in older patients: comparison with bed-based Intermediate Care.

Objective: to analyse the clinical impact of a home-based Intermediate Care model in the Catalan health system, comparing it with usual bed-based care.

Design: quasi-experimental longitudinal study.

Setting: hospital Municipal de Badalona and El Carme Intermediate Care Hospital, Badalona, Catalonia, Spain.

Participants: we included older patients with medical and orthopaedic disabling health crises in need of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) and rehabilitation.

Methods: a CGA-based hospital-at-home Integrated Care Programme (acute care and rehabilitation) was compared with a propensity score matched cohort of contemporary patients attended by usual inpatient hospital care (acute care plus intermediate care hospitalisation), for the management of medical and orthopaedics processes. Main outcomes measures were: (a) Health crisis resolution (referral to primary care at the end of the intervention); (b) functional resolution: relative functional gain (functional gain/functional loss) ≥ 0.35; and (c) favourable crisis resolution (health + functional) = a + b. We compared between-groups outcomes using uni/multivariable logistic regression models.

Results: clinical characteristics were similar between home-based and bed-based groups. Acute stay was shorter in home group: 6.1 (5.3-6.9) versus 11.2 (10.5-11.9) days, P < 0.001. The home-based scheme showed better results on functional resolution 79.1% (versus 75.2%), OR 1.62 (1.09-2.41) and on favourable crisis resolution 73.8% (versus 69.6%), OR 1.54 (1.06-2.22), with shorter length of intervention, with a reduction of -5.72 (-9.75 and -1.69) days.

Conclusions: in our study, the extended CGA-based hospital-at-home programme was associated with shorter stay and favourable clinical outcomes. Future studies might test this intervention to the whole Catalan integrated care system.