San Hospital in the Home (HITH)
The San Hospital In the Home (HITH) is an innovative new private service being offered by Sydney Adventist Hospital. For many people, the thought of being admitted to Hospital is quite daunting and many would prefer to return home as soon as possible. The San’s HITH service provides appropriate patients with the choice of receiving hospital quality medical treatment in their own home (or nursing home) as an alternative to acute hospital admission or prolonged hospital stay, with the aim of promoting a more rapid recovery.
Patients admitted to the San’s HITH service are classified as in-patients of the Hospital and will receive the Hospital’s high standard of compassionate and clinical nursing care and excellent medical service in the comfort and convenient surrounds of their own home. The HITH Medical Director coordinates patient treatment and upon discharge the patient will be referred back to their GP and / or Specialist for ongoing care.
At present, the San HITH service offers care and treatment to appropriate patients requiring the following:
- Intravenous Antibiotic Therapy
- Anticoagulation Therapy
- Wound Care
- Other as determined by HITH Director
The service will also assist with transport to specialist appointments and facilitate access to the San’s broad range of patient medical, diagnostic and wellness services.
HITH Staff
The San’s HITH service employs specialist nursing and medical staff, to provide individual care, tailored to each patient’s needs. Patients admitted to the San HITH service will be managed as if they were an inpatient in the Hospital. Each day, one of the specialist HITH team members will visit the patient to supervise their medical and nursing treatment at home.
24 Hour On-call Support
As well as daily visits from the HITH team, patients admitted to the HITH service will have access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to the on call HITH staff who will answer questions, address concerns or, where necessary, attend to them.
Benefits of San HITH
- Individual attention from qualified and caring nursing and medical staff in the comfort of your patients’ own home.
- Patients can be actively involved in their own care.
- Reduced risk of infection.
How Patients Can Be Admitted
In most cases, patients appropriate for the HITH service will be referred by their doctor, either directly or via Emergency Care. These patients will then be assessed and reviewed by a HITH team member before being admitted to the service. Patient acceptance into the service will be dependent of a number of factors, including: diagnosis, severity of condition and carer support. On discharge the patient is referred back to their doctor for further management and continuing care.
Cost
The HITH service is covered by most Health Funds and costs for the HITH service are similar to in-patient fees at Sydney Adventist Hospital. There will be no additional fees for the HITH doctor’s visits, however there may be individual charges from other service providers, such as Specialists, Radiology and Pathology for example.
Further Information
For further information Dr Suhan Baskar, San HITH Medical Director, can be contacted by phoning 9487 9111 and asking to be put through to the HITH team.
