Management of COPD in a Hospital-at-Home Setting at a Peripheral Spanish Hospital: 8-Year Experience

Abstract

We performed exploratory and descriptive analyses of data from our 8 years of experience in hospital-at-home (HaH) treatment to characterize the clinical profile of patients with exacerbated underlying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Our study had a retrospective research design, using historical electronic health records from patients admitted to the HaH setting between 2012 and 2019. We collected demographic, administrative, and clinical data from patients diagnosed with exacerbated COPD. Between 2012 and 2019, 420 patients diagnosed with acute respiratory infectious disease related to COPD were treated in our HaH setting (18% of all admissions to HaH). Most patients were referred from the Internal Medicine Department. The median length of the hospital stay was 10 days. Most patients (78.8%) presented acute exacerbation with no pneumonia. One-third of the patients required domiciliary oxygen therapy, and half required ventilatory devices for nebulized bronchodilator therapy. All patients were successfully discharged as clinically stable. Our HaH experience in managing patients with exacerbated COPD indicates a means of obtaining cost savings and increased quality of life for patients in which antibiotic and ventilatory therapy is not compromised.