title: [Hospital at home for acutely ill older].
abstract: The aging of population uses to evolve suffering from chronic diseases, many times in pluripathological shaped, which may engender frailty, disability and, as a last term, dependence. The aggravation of those and/or the appearance of others acute processes become the old people into a regular patient of our hospitals. The hospital at home (HaH) has showed that it may play an important role in the provision of range hospital cares to these patients, unimpaired of efficacy and security; but with indubitable benefits within the scope of their comfort (physical, psychical) and in the field of their functional condition. Available technical means at the present day and the staff's professionalism from these units make easier that any serious illness, medical or surgical, will be subsidiary in this type of attention sometime during their hospital care process. The HaH permits a more efficient rationalization of sanitary resources and should play an important role in the longed for interconnection between primary attention and specialized one.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Hospitalización Alternativa, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Santander, Cantabria, España. mffmiera@terra.es
authors.forename: Manuel Francisco
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Fernández-Miera
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D005853:Geriatrics; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000458:organization & administration; D018575:Home Care Services, Hospital-Based / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D013030:Spain