A program conducting home visits with vulnerable patients after they have been checked out of the hospital is doing its best to go online, both for the sake of the paramedics and patients.
Racine’s Mobile Integrated Health program went into a trial phase in the fall of 2018 and was fully implemented in 2019. Paramedics with the Racine Fire Department underwent training on how to carry out home visits to patients who had recently been discharged from the hospital.
The goal of the program is to ensure the patients are following their discharge instructions, taking their medications and watching for any red flags of circumstances that could risk that person needing to return to the hospital.
Brian Wolf, the Fire Department’s division chief of professional standards and head of the MIH program, said that because of the COVID-19 outbreak, most of the those check-ins and other services to help with recovery are now being done over the phone, sometimes with video chat or online.