Home Health Care Telehealth CHF Program

Program Goal: Integrating telehealth technology applications to develop a practical, evidence-based care solution to manage the home health care population of chronic disease patients

Program Purpose: Reduce the rate of rehospitalization, decrease costs, and improve patients' and health care providers' satisfaction

Program Scope: Enable patients to manage their medical care issues and allow health care providers to implement best practices in home health care

Program Audience: National Institutes of Health, medical staff and other health care providers, home health care providers and facilities, regulatory agencies, patients, family members, and medical devices providers

Program Background: Patton-Fuller Hospital is seeking to develop a better way to manage its population of chronic disease patients. Utilizing technology in the form of telehealth seemed to be an appropriate approach. Among the various goals, the program seeks to reduce the rate of rehospitalization, decrease costs for home health care patients, increase patient and physician satisfaction with care, improve patients' ability to manage their care, and identify knowledge and behavior deficits that might affect patients' ability to stay out of the hospital for patients with congestive heart failure. Patton-Fuller Hospital received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to provide initial funding to develop a telehealth program. It has been 1 year since the program was implemented. The purpose of this program evaluation is to determine the effectiveness of the process of carrying out this project.