Home management of hematological patients requiring hospital admission.
The hospital-at-home service (HHS) could be considered as an alternative to the traditional ward for elderly patients. We aimed at evaluating the home management of elderly people requiring transfusions. The ever-increasing demand on acute hospital services requires alternative methods of delivering all aspects of health care. HHS demonstrated to be as efficacious as a traditional ward for elderly and functionally compromised patients. The method was a retrospective descriptive study enrolling patients needing an hospital admission from 1st January 2007 to 31st December 2007 and reporting an hematological discharge's diagnosis as primary or secondary diagnosis. A total of 54 patients were evaluated in this study. Of them, 34 (62.9%) needed a hemocomponent transfusion for a total volume of 112 blood units and 49 platelet pools. Patients requiring at least one blood or platelet transfusion were more functionally compromised and presented a higher level of acute physiology and chronic health evaluation, compared to the non-transfused ones. The conclusion was that hematological subjects mainly the frail ones and functionally highly compromised with acute illnesses could be treated at home as an alternative of the traditional medical ward. This could be the starting point for future studies that will be able to increase the power of hospital-at-home service for this type of patients.
Department of Medical and Surgical Disciplines, Geriatric Section, University of Torino, San Giovanni Battista Hospital, Corso Bramante 88, I-10126 Torino, Italy. gianlucaisaia@yahoo.it
Gianluca
G
Isaia
Vittoria
V
Tibaldi
Marco
M
Astengo
Marco
M
Ladetto
Renata
R
Marinello
Mario
M
Bo
Giuliana
G
Michelis
Fiorella
F
Ruatta
Nicoletta Aimonino
NA
Ricauda
D018806:APACHE; D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D005260:Female; D016330:Frail Elderly; D006402:Hematologic Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome