A Model for Out-of-Hospital Multispecialty Emergency Medicine: Accomplishments and Challenges.
Health Serv Insights 2018;
11:1178632918805996. [PMID:
30369787 PMCID:
PMC6201181 DOI:
10.1177/1178632918805996]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2018] [Accepted: 09/15/2018] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Home care has been traditionally considered as an important type of medical service. "SOS Doctors" is a Greek organization providing out-of-hospital multispecialty emergency medicine services the past 25 years. Its services mainly meet the demands of the elderly and the nonambulatory patients. The decreased number of hospitalizations, hospital-related infections, and need for patient transportation are the main advantages of a model for out-of-hospital multispecialty emergency medicine. However, the time consumed by the doctor related to transportation is a drawback of medical house calls. Despite the challenges, medical house calls are a useful part of health services in the modern health care system.
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