Home-based Care for Chronic Diseases
Home-based Care for Chronic Diseases, such as home infusion services, relieves vulnerable, chronically ill patients of the burden to obtain care.
Aging and Chronic Disease
Life expectancy has increased in the last 60 years. People are growing older at a higher rate. With longer life spans, noninfectious, noncommunicable diseases are becoming more common. An empirical study in 2018 estimated that 45% of the US’s population suffers from at least one chronic illness (Raghupathi and Raghupathi 2018). Chronic disease usually has a compounding effect on a person’s bodily system; an individual is more likely to suffer from other chronic conditions with the presence of another one. In fact, some experts suspect multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) affect 1 out of 3 people globally (Hajat and Stein 2018).
The Burden of Chronic Disease
Every five years chronic disease afflicts 7 to 8 million more people (Holman 2020). There is real concern that chronic disease will exhaust health systems worldwide. Many countries are finding that health outlays are increasing faster than overall national income albeit the tactics to contain costs and lower health expenditures per capita. In almost every country, health administrators are seeing a large portion of individual health spending stemming from the aging population and their chronic disease management.
Chronic disease can also cause sudden medical emergencies such as stroke events, heart attacks, and even amputations. All of these complications require extensive post-acute treatment and rehabilitation. Failure of successful rehabilitation can result in a lesser quality of life (from an event such as a stroke) and/or another traumatizing medical emergency.
Care Strategies for Chronic Disease
Common Issues for Chronically Ill Patients
Chronic illness brings compounding effects because of the prevalence of comorbidity. It can also drastically restrict a person within their daily life. These limitations typically affect a person’s ability to work, socialize, obtain necessary services, and perform daily activities. Current health discourse places a heavy emphasis on how upstream social determinants can create poor health statuses and cause chronic disease (Cockerham, Hamby and Oates 2017). Individuals who develop chronic illness also see their emotional, financial, and social well-being suffer.
Why Incorporate Home-based Care into Chronic Disease Management
Home-based Care for Chronic Diseases, such as home infusion services, relieves vulnerable, chronically ill patients of the burden to obtain care. For instance, it can be a great solution for patients who have transportation barriers because of poor vision—a common complication of type 2 diabetes (“Eye Damage With Diabetes” 2021). Bringing care to an individual that is impacted by chronic disease truly is patient-centered care.
Home-based care also helps medical practitioners. It can contribute to high-performance in treatment compliance and follow-up care quality measures. Also, the risk of therapy non-adherence complications—namely intravenous therapies—due to missed appointments decreases with home-delivered care.
Home health brings more into the home than intravenous therapies. It includes a wide range of health and social services to treat illness or injury. Health insurance programs such as Medicare include home health benefits.
Key Takeaways of Chronic Disease
Advanced aging will bring more chronic disease even with aggressive preventive measures—people are living longer lives than ever before. Health systems will need to develop patient-centered strategies to deliver effective chronic disease management and even post acute care for events such as strokes and heart attacks. Home health eliminates barriers from people’s lives that stem from the complications of chronic disease. Learn more about Home Infusion Services and Home Health Care and what it can do for chronically ill patients.
References
Cockerham, William C., Bryant W. Hamby, and Gabriela R. Oates. 2017. “The Social Determinants Of Chronic Disease”. American Journal Of Preventive Medicine 52 (1): S5-S12. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2016.09.010.
“Eye Damage With Diabetes”. 2021. Kaiser Permanente Washington. https://wa.kaiserpermanente.org/healthAndWellness/index.jhtml?item=%2Fcommon%2FhealthAndWellness%2Fconditions%2Fdiabetes%2Feyes.html.
Hajat, Cother, and Emma Stein. 2018. “The Global Burden Of Multiple Chronic Conditions: A Narrative Review”. Preventive Medicine Reports 12: 284-293. doi:10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.008.
Holman, Halsted R. 2020. “The Relation Of The Chronic Disease Epidemic To The Health Care Crisis”. ACR Open Rheumatology 2 (3): 167-173. doi:10.1002/acr2.11114.
Raghupathi, Wullianallur, and Viju Raghupathi. 2018. “An Empirical Study Of Chronic Diseases In The United States: A Visual Analytics Approach To Public Health”. International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health 15 (3): 431. doi:10.3390/ijerph15030431.
