Auckland offers virtual hospital service to Covid patients

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Auckland DHBs are operating a Hospital in the Home programme for Covid-19 patients, keeping whole wards full of people out of hospital.

Devices and data are also being supplied to patients if needed for them to remain safely at home.

The service is for patients who need more support than the primary care and supported isolation and quarantine (SIQ) teams can provide.

“This service is provided for people who are diagnosed with Covid‐19 and who need extra monitoring and support during the acute or recovery phase of their illness and for whom without this service may be admitted to or have a longer stay in hospital,” a Northern Region Health Coordination Centre spokesperson says.

Counties Manukau Health general manager localities, Penny Magud, says Middlemore’s Hospital in the Home is managing on average 22 patients per day, which equates to a ward full of people in their own homes that would otherwise be in hospital.

The team are all clinical, experienced emergency department and community nurses, who are overseen by a nurse practitioner with the support of medicine and infectious diseases senior medical officers.

They use phones and video calls to contact patients, depending on each patient’s clinical indicators, and the hospital gives phones, tablets and data to patients if needed.

The team use the Border Client Management System (BCMS), which all providers managing Covid cases in the community use.

“This allows visibility across providers, especially when one member of the bubble is being clinically managed by Hospital in the Home and the others are receiving wrap around services by one of our community Māori or Pacific health providers,” says Magud.

“This also enables the Metro Auckland Hospital in the Homes to support each other from a capacity level as they are all using the same regional technology platform.”

A Waitematā DHB spokesperson tells eHealthNews the BCMS is also being linked with its hospital system.

Waitematā DHB has developed a service called COVID Care at Home (CC@H) which is for all Covid positive patients who are discharged from the DHB, whether from the ED or after an inpatient stay.

There are around 5–10 patients under the CC@H service, but this number can vary and is growing.

A Waitematā spokesperson says CC@H has two functions, one of which is the Hospital in the Home service, which involves patients being given a pulse oximeter on discharge and a chart for recording readings of their heart rate and oxygen saturation.

The CC@H team are trained nurses and typically they telephone and text patients in their care to review their readings and their symptoms at least once daily and provide advice on what to do next based on the information. They can use video calling too.

The second function is about ensuring that the patient’s welfare concerns are properly met by connecting them with welfare teams, cultural support or other services appropriate to their needs.

Waitematā DHB also provides devices and/ or data to patients to participate in the programme if needed.

The NRHCC says Hospital in the Home teams work with the patient and their primary care team during recovery and will refer to their local GP or agreed Community Isolation & Quarantine provider (if different) when they are ready to be discharged from the service.

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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