The Cedars-Sinai Medical Network has started a program that sends medical staff on periodic house calls to selected patients who have been discharged from the hospital, in order to help avoid unnecessary readmission.
Other hospitals have similar programs, in part as a response to a provision of the Affordable Care Act that can fine hospitals with high readmission rates. The Cedars-Sinai program recently was featured in the following video on the CBS Evening News.
What do you think about the house call programs? Will it actually save hospitals money?
And we couldn’t help but notice that the nurse in the video isn’t wearing scrubs. Do you think nurses making house calls should be able to ditch their scrubs and wear what they want? Let us know in the comments below.