Geriatric Evaluation and Management at Home
GEM@Home will commence at Colac Area health in May 2022 in partnership with Barwon Health through new Better@Home funding.
GEM at Home is a bed substitution funding model that supports older people to be assessed treated and managed at home. This program delivers a unique transdisciplinary model of care that supports older peoples with multiple and complex care needs to be assessed, treated and managed at home. It aims to:
• Provide patients with the option to receive care in their own home environment.
• Improve patient experience and outcomes.
• Decrease the length of stay of GEM patients in hospital releasing capacity to enable more timely treatment of other patients.
• Reduce acute presentation and admission rates and therefore demand on inpatient beds.
• Increase the number of patients who are able to access GEM at any given time due to favourable bed substitution model.
GEM at home is a time limited (14-21 days) program and provides a 7 day a week visiting services between the hours of 9:00 and 16:00. The daily visits to the home will include daily observations/vital signs, exercise program, skin check and moisturizer application, and wellbeing checks.
The GEM at Home service model provides specialist assessment and management by an interdisciplinary team comprising medical, nursing and allied health. Daily visits are provided by one of the team that work as advanced practitioners working at edge of scope to provide care that is not typically delivered by their profession.
• Community Home Nurses
• Physiotherapist
• Occupational Therapist
• Pharmacist
• Geriatrician (BH) and provision of medical oversight
• GEM@Home NUM (BH)
• AH Coordinators for escalation of care after hours
• Other allied health as required
Patient’s will be assessed for appropriateness for GEM at Home based on:
• Achievable goals within 2-3 weeks
• Determined to be medically and functionally safe to be managed at home by the GEM at Home medical team
• Require interventions that can be easily provided in the community
• Home safety risk screen has been completed and any identified issues addressed
• Live within 10 km radius of CAH- capacity to admit beyond this radius may occur in consultation with Barwon Health and Colac Area Health management.
If you have a client/patient who would benefit from the program or would like further info you can email the team on [email protected].
