In a letter-to-the-editor, Innovive Health’s CEO Joseph McDonough applauds a recent Boston Globe editorial (“Providing hospital-level care at home saves money. The government should allow more of it”), and he highlights why “behavioral health patients could gain from this approach” as well.
Your July 26 editorial is spot-on in detailing how home-based health care can lower costs while improving quality of life. Massachusetts must consider supporting this type of care model for behavioral health patients, too.
As the CEO of a home health care agency that serves some of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable behavioral health patients, I’ve witnessed how this approach can remove the social barriers to continuing care and reduce unnecessary high-cost hospital visits.
These patients often cycle in and out of emergency departments and inpatient facilities, and the results can be costly. However, integrating care for psychiatric conditions and medical issues in the home can facilitate comprehensive treatment while providing optimal outcomes for patients. This helps control costs, keeps patients out of hospitals, and moves them toward independence.
When a behavioral health patient is continually hospitalized, everybody loses: hospitals, insurers, providers, and most certainly the patient. Hospitalization could be preventable with the right infrastructure in place.
Implementing inclusive home care would benefit our entire health care system. It also makes fiscal sense and is a humane thing to do.
Joseph McDonough
Founder and CEO
Innovive Health
Medford
Read more: Opening doors to home-based health care (bostonglobe.com)