The Catholic Not For Profit is teaming up with the private health insurer to deliver a new program designed to support care at home, as an alternative to hospital admission in South Australia.
Starting later this year, the My Home Hospital program will be available for eligible patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across metropolitan and outer suburbs of Adelaide.
Patients can be referred to the program via a number of routes – directly from their GP, from the hospital emergency department or from their aged care facility.
Participants will be assigned a care coordinator, who will work with them and their families or carers to develop a treatment plan with clinical support provided both face-to-face and via a virtual care centre.
The program is being steered by Wellbeing SA, the State Government’s health and wellbeing agency established in January 2020 which says 1.3% of the state’s health services are currently delivered by acute hospitals are at home – it wants to increase this number to 5%.
“Our new joint venture with Medibank enables both organisations to combine our expertise and experience to give more South Australian public-hospital patients the opportunity to receive services at home, as an alternative to going to hospital, when clinically appropriate,” said Calvary National CEO Martin Bowles.
“Medibank expects increasing demand from Australians for in-home care as an alternative to hospital admission, which is why we employ more than 1,500 clinicians across our in-home care and telehealth businesses.”
Medibank – which has more than 3.7 million customers – already works with the SA Government’s Community Care Program through local business Home Support Services (HSS), which it acquired in August 2018.
