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Comment on "Hospital at Home for Elderly Patients With Acute Decompensation of Chronic Heart Failure"

Helen Kao, MD; Louise C. Walter, MD

Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(17):1576-1577.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

As the population ages, the number of older patients hospitalized with functional debility and exacerbations of chronic illnesses increases. For these patients, traditional hospital care frequently results in adverse outcomes, such as delirium, infections, and functional decline, which increase the risk to these patients of functional dependency, institutionalization, and dying. For example, more than a third of hospitalized patients older than 70 years are discharged with worse functional status than their baseline status. Half these patients acquire their new impairments during their hospitalization, despite the stabilization of their acute illness.¹ Suboptimal transitions in care at the time of hospital discharge (eg, poor medication reconciliation, failure to communicate to subsequent physicians the care plan and patient care preferences, or missed follow-up visits) also lead to adverse outcomes and frequent subsequent hospital admissions.^2-3 Several alternatives to traditional hospital care have been shown to address these . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Hospital at Home for Elderly Patients With Acute Decompensation of Chronic Heart Failure: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial
Vittoria Tibaldi, Gianluca Isaia, Carla Scarafiotti, Federico Gariglio, Mauro Zanocchi, Mario Bo, Serena Bergerone, and Nicoletta Aimonino Ricauda
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(17):1569-1575.
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