Lee Health has launched a Hospital at Home program, the first of its kind in Southwest Florida, designed to treat patients at home rather than in a hospital setting.

The program launched at the health care system’s Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers in late November, with plans to start at other Lee Health hospitals in the future, according to a late December announcement.

The program is described as offering patients the option of “safe, high-quality care — at a level previously only available within the hospital — from the comfort of their own home.” Lee Health cited other systems, including Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins, that have implemented similar programs.

For now, Hospital at Home focuses on five diagnoses: pneumonia; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD; congestive heart failure; urinary tract infection requiring hospitalization; and cellulitis.

Kristy Dutton, system director for Hospital at Home, said the program was started because many patients resist hospitalization for these types of diagnoses.

“A lot of patients are hesitant to go and stay in the hospital, even though they’re sick,” she said. “We found a lot of patients [who] really want to stay in their own bed, in their own home.”

Lee Health provided the example of 69-year-old Fort Myers resident Wendy Markman, the program’s first patient, who was diagnosed with pneumonia in the emergency room the week before Thanksgiving and was told she would qualify for the new program.

“I thought I’d rather sleep at home,” Markman said. “My husband doesn’t drive, so it would be difficult for him to come see me at the hospital. Plus, the idea that he would be with me at all times was comforting. My recovery was quicker because I was at home, and I could move around. The biggest thing was that I was able to get good sleep, which made a huge difference.”

Dutton said patients are evaluated by a physician and nurse to determine if they are appropriate for Hospital at Home, and currently, the program is offered to patients who meet the criteria and live within a 30-mile radius of Gulf Coast Medical Center.

Technology makes at-home program possible

Dutton said that nurses from Gulf Coast Medical Center visit patients who meet the criteria for care at home twice a day, and technology makes 24-hour monitoring possible for the patients, who are given wearable monitors providing continuous transmission of vital signs, including heart rate and respiration rate.

At-home patients also receive an iPad for communication with clinical staff, including a daily virtual visit with their physician, a thermometer, blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter to measure oxygen levels. Patients also receive medications, imaging and lab tests in their homes.

“They get a lot of one-on-one care and a lot of one-on-one interaction with the nurses, but we also have a virtual nurse who is monitoring them,” Dutton said. “Every few hours, we will call them on the iPad and look at them while they take their blood pressure and oxygen. But 24 hours a day we’re monitoring their heart rate and respiratory rate to make sure they are doing OK. And if we see a problem, we immediately call or send a nurse out in addition to the two visits they have a day.”

She said the field nurses lay out the patients’ prescribed medications and can watch them being taken and will call the patient if they see any unusual activity on the monitors.

Dutton said the length of stay for at-home treatment is three to four days, which she said is comparable to what it would be for in-patient treatment.

In addition to the medical aspects of their care, patients at home also receive three delivered meals a day, prepared and packaged by Lee Health Food & Nutrition services based on the dietary needs for their diagnosis.

How do costs compare to in-patient settings?

It is too early in the program to compare the costs of Hospital at Home care to an in-patient hospital stay, Dutton said.

So far, according to Dutton, the program has had 21 patients, to build to five patients a day after the first of the year and to 15 patients a day by September 2025.

“We haven’t had enough patients to really try to figure that through,” she said. “We actually get paid the same as if you were in the brick-and-mortar hospital.”

As for insurance coverage for the at-home program, Dutton said currently, only Medicare and Medicaid cover it, with no commercial insurers participating yet.

“A lot of the commercial insurers are not on board yet, but that usually does take time with any new program: They usually wait and see how things go with Medicare,” she said.