Trending News: Home Hospital Model of Care Could Reduce Cost, Readmission

A home hospital model of care could reduce cost, health care use, and readmissions as well as boost physical activity, according to MD Magazine. A randomized controlled trial from Brigham and Women’s Hospital provides evidence backing the concept of home hospital care for patients with acute illness—a large hurdle for proponents of the approach. The researchers noted that patients have an opportunity to be in a familiar setting, while clinicians can be with a patient in their own surroundings.

Gut microbiota can mediate the pathophysiology of many diseases, including cancer, making manipulation of the gut microbiota an emerging area of concern for researchers, according to Contagion Live. A new study from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that giving patients with cancer a dose of the antibiotic vancomycin before radiation may prepare the immune system to attack tumor cells more effectively. The study results suggest potential value in future human clinical trials and pairing vancomycin with radiotherapy may someday be seen as a key part of the armamentarium available for treatment of certain cancers.

Collecting data from electronic medical records of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, researchers were able to construct a risk prediction model of hospitalizations due to heart failure for patients with the disease, according to The American Journal of Managed Care. The study, which included patients with preexisting type 2 diabetes mellitus and patients who were newly diagnosed with the disease, found that 44% of hospital admissions relating to heart failure list diabetes as a comorbidity. Researchers hope future studies will evaluate the calibration of their model in new settings to better gauge when providers should take action to prevent such hospitalizations.