Today, it’s standard for patients to travel to a central hub of some kind, spend as much as a half hour in the lobby and fill out a few minutes of paperwork to get a maximum of 15 minutes of time with their doctor. But thankfully, we’ve come to a time when care can return to the home. And it’s time we take full advantage of that fact.
I’d argue that it’s long overdue to bring the medical visit back to patient homes, not just for those in need of chronic care, but for all patients who are less than markedly stable. If we’re not quite at the point where we can provide every standard primary care service in a home, we’re pretty close, and it should be our goal to close the gap.
Consumers want convenience
While it might not be practical to roll out the service to everyone at once, we could start with patients who are healthy, but in higher risk categories due to age or condition. My mother comes to mind. At age 74, she has a history of cardiac arrhythmia, is slightly overweight and suffers from joint problems. None of these may pose an immediate risk to her health, but they are part of the complex process of aging for her, and all that goes with it.
I believe her health would be managed better if someone saw her “in her element,” taking care of my disabled brother, rushing around cooking dinner and climbing stairs. It would also be easier for clinicians to show her health information at her kitchen table, and get her engaged with making progress. (Kitchen tables are inherently less intimidating.)
Besides, there’s the issue of travel. Often, she finds it taxing to get organized and get to medical appointments, which take place 20 minutes away at the offices of her local health system. “I wish someone would bring a van with testing devices like an x-ray machine in it, bring their tablets into my house and do the check up at home,” she says. “There’s no reason for me to do all the traveling.” And believe me, folks, if a technophobe like my mom — who won’t touch a computer — is wondering why her physicians aren’t making better use of mobile healthcare tools, you can bet other patients are.
Mobile satisfaction
If you’re a health leader reading this, you may be flinching at the idea of reorganizing your services to hit the road. But it’s worth doing, particularly now that patients are demanding mobile health access. After all, rolling out a mobile-enhanced door to door primary care service would be an unbeatable way to differentiate yourself from your competitors and enhance patient satisfaction.
I believe that whatever investments you have to make would be modest in comparison to the benefits your patients would realize. If you come to them, not only are you getting to know them better, and as a result, you’re likely to improve care quality.
Now, I understand that if you’re traveling, you probably can’t pack four patient encounters into an hour, and that is certainly a financial consideration. But I believe patients would pay more to see their very own doctor (not a stranger, as with some startups) visit them at home. More importantly, I’d argue, a reworked system that puts patients at the center of their care would eventually save money, time and lives which is where value based reimbursement is headed anyway.
