Seeking to care for patients within its nearest environment, the Western Metropolitan Health Service implemented the Geriatric Home Hospitalization Program, which is held in Senior Long Stay Establishments (Eleam) and inside their private homes.
This type of benefit reduces the large number of potential risks to older people by being hospitalized in care facilities, such as health care-associated infections.
In addition, some of the main advantages of this modality is that its characteristics allow to improve the quality of the relationship that is formed between the patient and the health team in charge of their treatment, thus facilitating the achieve recovery more quickly and without losing autonomy.
The head nurse of this program, Patricia Guajardo, explained that home hospitalization manages to reduce the risk of disorientation and confusion of the elderly by not having to leave their microenvironment. “With this work patients can recover accompanied by their family and loved ones avoiding pathologies such as Delirium,” he said.
Similarly, the reference to this topic in the Sub-Direction of Primary Care and administrative coordinator of the program, Karen Farías, argued that “this strategy allows to provide more advanced benefits than those offered by the Family Health Centers”.
Multi-discipline team
For her part, the head of Home Hospitalization of the Service, Dinka Avendaño, emphasized that this project has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Subdirections of Assistance Management and Primary Care, in coordination with the Metropolitan Hospital, which is where the offices of this program are located.
“The main benefit of this work has been the possibility of providing support to the elderly through a multidisciplinary team, thus promoting the recovery and improvement of the quality of life of patients over sixty years old,” he said.
One of the patients benefiting from this initiative is Armando Guzmán, 88, who has been hospitalized at home since September 18. His responsible tutor and niece, Leonor Guzmán, claimed to be very happy with the attention his uncle has received so far.
“I thought it was super good, I’m happy because I’d rather have it here. They’ve come to see you every day and several specialists. So far he has made great strides,” he said.
It should be noted that this program has 30 seats per day with an occupancy rate of 90% and to date 104 patients have been treated, of whom 58 have already been discharged.
The beneficiaries of this program are the residents of the communes of Quinta Normal, Cerro Navia, Lo Prado, Renca and Pudahuel which are mostly derived from the Family Health Centers Lo Franco, Pudahuel Poniente, La Estrella, Renca, Dr. Raúl Yazigi, Pablo Neruda and the Senior Establishments Centro Cordillera and Betania.
