Quality Framework
Background
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) instituted the acute hospital care at home (AHCAH) waiver that allowed hospitals to provide acute level services to patients at home under certain circumstances. The waiver flexibilities built on the success of previous hospital at home models that have been tested over decades, showing that acute care at home can be a safe, effective way to provide care to patients. A complete overview of the waiver can be found here.
Right now, this waiver is tied to the duration of the public health emergency (PHE). The Advanced Care at Home Coalition advocates for the creation of a CMS Innovation Center model to test an acute care at home delivery model that is held accountable for quality and cost.
The Advanced Care at Home Coalition has created this framework to describe components to assess the quality of care being provided to patients in hospital at home programs and guide conversations around quality in a future acute care at home model.