The development of an evaluation framework for a Hospital at Home service: Lessons from the literature

The purpose of this paper is to share good practice with interested professionals, commissioners and health service managers regarding the development of an evidence-based approach to evaluation of an integrated care service providing acute level care for patients in their own homes in South London called the Guys and St Thomas’ @home service.

A literature review related to Hospital at Home (HH) schemes was carried out with an aim of scoping approaches used during previous evaluations of HH type interventions to inform the development of an evaluation strategy for @home. The results of the review were then applied to the Donabedian conceptual model: Structure; Process; and Outcome and contextualised to the population being served by the scheme to ensure a robust, practical and comprehensive approach to evaluation.

Due to the heterogeneity of the studies it was not possible to conduct a systematic review or meta-analysis. In total, 28 studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria and included both HH to facilitate early discharge and admission prevention across a wide range of conditions. The key finding was there is a dearth of literature evaluating staff preparation to work on HH, models of delivery, specifically integrated care and trans-disciplinary working and few studies included the experiences of family carers.

This paper will be of value to those involved in the commissioning and delivery of HH and other models of integrated care services type services and will help to inform evaluation strategies that are practical, evidence based and include all stakeholder perspectives.