This is not surprising: they have the scale to innovate. In the Netherlands, large hospitals are leading the way in transforming care. Since healthcare providers have high fixed costs, a decrease in volume can lead to inefficiencies of scale, which may cause financial problems. In the long term, this reduction of care volume in hospitals may threaten the accessibility of the hospital care that cannot be provided at home. In the short term, volume that disappears from the hospital may appear like a blessing: after all, hospitals are still clogged with care that has been postponed due to the corona crisis. Volume disappears from hospitals, data needs to flow between the various electronic patient records of different care providers, and care processes need to be redesigned. The success of hospital care at home raises some tough questions for healthcare systems. The difference between countries is large, and within countries the differences are at least as large. The not so good news: it makes a big difference where you live as a patient. Many of the barriers have been removed: patients and doctors have been able to experience that care at home works, reimbursements have been adjusted and cost of the required technology has lowered.
66% of hospitals have embraced home care as a key strategy. How many patients now receive their care at home, and what strategies did providers and countries follow? The good news is that 12% of patients now have the option to receive their care at home.
This study examines the developments of the past five years. Our study postulated that the healthcare system would develop according to the following metaphor: doctors as air traffic controllers, patients as pilots of their own diseases. The first question patients ask when they are in the hospital: ‘when can I go home?’įive years ago, we showed that 46% of the activities taking place in the hospital could be provided at home.
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