Healthy@Home: An Ambulatory Vision for WA

Ambulatory Care is effective, efficient care for routine patients that have predictable needs and outcomes. Primarily, but not exclusively, Ambulatory Care occurs outside the hospital walls in the community.

Many acute and chronic medical conditions can be efficiently managed by a combination of hospital-based or clinic-based services and home visits by doctors, nurses and allied health staff.

Examples of distinctive Ambulatory Care services include:

Hospital in the Home Services (HITH)
Rehabilitation in the Home Service (RITH)
Post Acute Care Services (PAC)
Home Palliation or Home Hospice
Community-based Chronic Disease Programs
Telehealth services

There are many other existing services that are Ambulatory in nature, such as:

Outpatient clinics
Chemotherapy clinics
Day Surgery
Haemodialysis
Some diagnostic procedures

The Healthy@Home Initiative

Healthy@Home is the State's flagship ambulatory care program encompassing all current and future services to be delivered to suitable patients for treatment within their own homes. This health reform initiative will be pivotal to the longer-term management of the aging population and those with chronic diseases in WA.

Services provided through Healthy@Home will prevent people from unnecessarily ENTERING hospital and will assist people EXITING hospitals sooner. This program will also improve the transitional care and connection between the patient, their GP and their Specialist.

Specifically, the multiple services on offer under Healthy@Home will reduce the average length of stay in hospitals, admission and readmissions for patients with chronic diseases, especially Diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Cardiac failure.

The Healthy@Home initiative will initially focus on delivery two key programs, which will each house existing and new ambulatory care services to the community: (i) Hospital In The Home and (ii) Healthy@ Home chronic disease services.

Hospital In The Home Programs

Hospital in the Home programs involve the delivery of acute care services in the patient's home for conditions that traditionally required inpatient treatment. These services involve daily home visits by nurses and allied health staff with medical management by either hospital-based Specialists or occasionally a General Practitioner.

This is an important strategy to reduce unnecessary hospitalisation and help ease the pressure on our hospital emergency departments. The quality, safety and patient satisfaction with well-managed ‘hospital in the home' type services is well documented and often rates much higher than similar care delivered within most hospitals.

Fast Facts About Hospital In The Home (PDF 22KB)

Chronic disease services offered by Healthy@Home

The growing number of people with complex chronic diseases in Western Australia requires urgent intervention to ensure that these patients are cared for in the community and do not unnecessarily require admission and care in the tertiary system.

The chronic disease services are designed to care for patients with chronic disease at home and will involve creating multi-disciplinary community-based teams to provide education and support to patients known to have one or more chronic diseases. The first phase will focus on the three high volume diagnoses i.e. Diabetes, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and CCF (Chronic Cardiac Failure).

Fast Facts about the Healthy@ Home chronic disease services (PDF 22KB)

Frequently Asked Questions about Healthy@Home (PDF 32KB)

Related Materials

PowerPoint Presentations

The following link allows you to view a presentation given on 26 July by Dr Marco Bonollo on Chronic Disease Management.

Chronic Disease Management by Marco Bonollo (PDF 2.12MB)

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