The Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health recently disclosed a new initiative to help stakeholders better provide care in patients’ homes.
Home as a Health Care Hub seeks to “reimagine the home environment as an integral part of the healthcare system,” according to the FDA. Though care increasingly is moving into patients’ homes, few consider the infrastructure required to enable home-based health services, the agency said in a statement last Tuesday.
FDA partnered with an architectural firm to create a home prototype where stakeholders can design and test home care solutions that can improve health outcomes and advance health equity. The prototype will serve as an “idea lab,” FDA said, and will use virtual and augmented reality technology to simulate the various needs of patients receiving care in the home. The initiative is set to launch in May.
A key focus will be serving disadvantaged communities, especially lower-income people or people living in rural areas. Home care has the potential to produce better outcomes and greater patient satisfaction, FDA said, underserved individuals should therefore be prioritized. Advancing health equity in the home is one of the FDA’s current strategic priorities.
“To increase access to health care and maximize health outcomes, it is critical that the delivery of personalized care has people at the center,” the agency said. “The Home as a Health Care Hub prototype is the beginning of the conversation.”
On Thursday, the American Occupational Therapy Association announced it would be represented on the Home as a Health Care Hub’s steering committee.
“For people with chronic conditions, the vast majority of healthcare takes place in the home, but healthcare devices and technologies were not designed to seamlessly integrate into the home environment,” Sabrena McCarley, director of clinical reimbursement and transitional care management at AOTA, said in a statement. “[Occupational therapy practitioners’] expertise and holistic understanding of how people live their daily lives can help make the home an optimal place to manage health.”
