Dartmouth Health Unveils New Home-Based Care Initiative

Dartmouth Health is launching a suite of home-based care services in partnership with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, branded as Dartmouth Health at Home.

Supported by a $20 million philanthropic gift, Dartmouth Health at Home aims to transform rural healthcare by expanding access to care, improving patient outcomes, and facilitating the safe and effective transition of care from hospitals and ambulatory settings to patients' homes.

The program will include home-based primary care and palliative care, and will establish the Family Caregiver Institute at Dartmouth Health to provide family caregivers with services, education, support, and access to home care aides.

"One of the things that is revolutionary about Dartmouth Health at Home is bringing a range of coordinated services to patients in their homes rather than patients coming to one of our facilities for services," said Dr. Nathan Goldstein, chair of the Department of Medicine at Dartmouth Health and co-CEO of Dartmouth Health at Home.

Goldstein said the program is designed to provide medical services in the home for patients who struggle to get to medical appointments, such as older frail adults who rely on family members for transport, and that seeing patients in their home on a timely basis should help clinicians diagnose and treat conditions before they progress to acute stages. The program will also draw on the medical school's Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice to study what works in home-based medical services and how those services can lower costs.