Home Visits and Home-Based Care: A Necessary, Impractical, or Humanitarian Primary Care Service?

Abstract

Looking after patients at home may be considered to be more a feature of the past, but delivering quality home-based care may contribute to beneficent and cost effective overall healthcare. While regarding an elderly population of over sixties as more vulnerable, the added workload for primary care physicians is a consideration when using resources, allowing time, providing benefits, and seeking positive outcomes. New models of care studied confirm a perceived need for an extra level of patient-centred care. Nurse practitioners play a greater part compared with physicians, the latter more likely to sustain pressure from overwork. Burnout and loss of professional recognition and service can lead to dissatisfaction.