Collection
Home-Based Primary Care

What is a Collection?

With an estimated two million homebound adults in the U.S. today and the nation’s older adult population increasing, home-based primary care is putting a new face on the “house calls” of yesteryear. As the shift to home- and community-based care continues, health care organizations are seeking new options for providing health care services in the comfort of the home. Home-based primary care is particularly valuable for frail older adults and people with disabilities who have multiple chronic conditions, functional impairments, and/or social challenges that make office or hospital visits difficult. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated opportunities to test and spread this approach.

Many home-based primary care models care include interdisciplinary care teams to identify and address social needs, comprehensive care coordination, and innovative technology to track and share information. High-quality home-based primary care options can serve as a critical tool to help provide more person-centered care to underserved populations, reduce health care disparities, and curb spiraling costs associated with unnecessary hospital visits or nursing home admissions.

Health care stakeholders can use this Playbook Collection to understand the latest evidence behind home-based primary care models and explore practical tools and case studies to learn considerations and effective strategies for implementing these programs.

What works in home-based primary care?

Following are summaries of peer-reviewed research, evaluations, and reports on home-based primary care programs. Many of these programs have demonstrated positive results, such as improved health and quality of life for patients and their caregivers and reduced acute care use and costs across different populations and settings.

What do these models look like in practice?

Below find case studies and on-the-ground perspectives on specific home-based primary care programs. Case studies detail each program’s population, care team structure, payment model, lessons and preliminary outcomes, and other care model features that may be useful to organizations interested in implementing these or similar models.

How can my organization implement this approach?

Following are practical tools and strategies that health systems, providers, and payers can use when seeking to build or augment a home-based primary care program.