Hospitalization at Home (HH): Assessment and Medical-Surgical Care Liberal Arts, Business & Sciences Program Fall 2017 Semester - Alicante

There is an increase in life expectancy and aging population. Diseases requiring long-term care are becoming more frequent, increasing prevalence of chronic disease, disability situations and expense associated with them.
Home hospitalization units (UHD) provide services to individuals and their families in the home setting, that is why -considering the pathological characteristics of the patients at home added to the accumulation of problems of a social and health nature, their duration in time and the frequent changes of patients' condition as well as the usual difficulties caregivers experiment- they require a broad set of services provided simultaneously or sequentially by multiple formal agents. This multiplicity of conditions, services to be offered, agents and its dual dependence, generates a context in which providing quality home care is a complex task and there is a need to use a nurse an innovative methodology in accordance with the needs of each health department.
The high complexity of these processes, their diversity and the different stages in each one, require several strategies and coordination mechanisms. The case management model of holistic intervention, centered on the client as a whole together with the environment, promotes personal autonomy and social participation and, above all, facilitates access to coordinated care resources that meet the comprehensive needs of patients and caregivers. A model that integrates quality and cost. The case manager nurses are not part of the UHD but collaborate actively in the uptake and binding of complex cases with the UHD team.
On the other hand, information technologies have in the hospital at home unit a wide range of potential application and improvement of quality of care indicators- thus acquiring skills in these areas is becoming today an urgent need for nurses.

Course will consist of 60hrs of in class work and 90 hrs of independent work outside the classroom.