Hospital in the Home (HITH) provides eligible patients with the ability to receive acute inpatient care in the comfort of their own home, away from a hospital setting.
The service includes a multidisciplinary team of health professionals who support a patient’s treatment requirements. HITH patients are regarded as hospital patients and will receive daily high-quality hospital-comparable care and monitoring at home, until they are discharged. The service has expanded beyond Country WA and is free for all WA public hospital patients.
Patients are informed at admission that all care is to be delivered by HITH and they cannot also have GP appointments during admission. This is also part of the written information given to patients advising that the first point of contact is the home hospital nursing team and providing that number. If they already have a GP follow up booked, they are askedto delay this until after discharge, to prevent any issues with Medicare billing.
Once the patient no longer requires hospital-level care, they will be transferred back to their GP or another community-based service, such as Silverchain. The GP will be provided with a discharge summary. Referral is by hospital doctor (no self-referrals).Visit the WA Department of Health website for more information and related links to Health Service Providers