UW Health stresses importance of home-based care

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - According to UW Health, home-based care will now play a key role in keeping people out of the hospital in the future, as well as keeping the most vulnerable patients healthy.

UW Health increased its home-based care efforts this past year to accommodate patients who were not able to go to outpatient clinics for their care due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to UW Health.

Through its home-care partner Care Direct, UW Health provided patients a home-based primary care service that gave homebound patients access to the level of care they would have in a clinic setting.

“UW Health has been helping to lead a transformation that is happening around the country; implementing home-based primary care and other innovative home-based services, in an effort to keep people healthy and out of the hospital,” Dr. Melissa Dattalo, medical director, home-centered care, in the Office of Population Health at UW Health, and assistant professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “The importance of this was magnified during the pandemic when our hospitals needed capacity for COVID-19 patients.”

Dr. Dattalo went on to say how most homebound or nursing-home eligible patients, often elderly, rather be cared for at home than in a hospital.

“We find patients prefer these settings, but we also find that their outcomes and satisfaction are better when they can be cared for at home,” Dattalo said. “It is a win-win for both the patients who enjoy the high quality of care provided, and for the health system to have lower costs.”