Home is the Hub of Healthcare

Apr 22
09:36

2015

Garima Roy

Garima Roy

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Have you ever thought about why hospitals dominate the healthcare space? Hospitals were an invention of the pre-Victorian age, largely to treat and isolate infectious patients from the general population.

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Have you ever thought about why hospitals dominate the healthcare space? Hospitals were an invention of the pre-Victorian age,Home is the Hub of Healthcare Articles largely to treat and isolate infectious patients from the general population. Subsequently, with increasing medical advances, they have become specialist care centers where highly skilled healthcare professionals bring patients to them for treatment. Hospitals consume the great majority of healthcare funding in most countries. For most people, hospitals turn out to be very expensive and can be quite dangerous also at the same time (infection risk etc). Hospitals in India, in particular, are most of the times overcrowded and doctors are usually overworked. Patients are stuck in hospital beds for a long duration because of the lack of appropriate care and support in the community and as a result are unable to recover as fast as would otherwise be possible. The increasing healthcare demands of the population, coupled with the increasing costs of ‘high-tech’ interventions, makes the current institutional (hospital-based) system unaffordable/unsustainable in the future.

Most people, given the choice, would prefer being treated at home provided that the required skills and resources were in place. It is of utmost importance that health care services at home are delivered to the patients by well-trained health care personnel. The service delivered by the personnel should ensure that patients get proper treatment. Professional, high quality, accountable & accurate home healthcare services are commonly available in the West, universally funded by insurance companies (e.g. the US, Europe and UK) or the state (e.g. the UK). Why is home healthcare an important part of these markets? Because the costs of most homecare activities are significantly lower compared to those that are incurred in the hospital. Further, health outcomes of health care services at home are as good if not better than hospitals (lower infections, lower complications and re-admissions etc). Healthcare is a consumer market - encouraging patients to take greater control over their health and diseases, and at a lower cost, can be greatly enhanced through homecare interventions.In a world where everybody is increasingly becoming conscious of their health and constantly focusing on finding better ways to improve their health and heal faster, the comfort of getting quality health care services at their home can be a relief to them. Home healthcare services let the patients heal in the comfort of their home without having to wait for long hours at the hospital, at affordable prices while getting undivided attention from the expert homecare services personnel. Given all these benefits one would definitelyprefer getting the specialized health care services at the comfort of theirhome for better health, better healing process, better health supervision&better care &attention– wouldn’t you?