Set admission and exclusion criteria that match patient acuity to what a home setting can safely support.
Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Management
Hospital-at-Home Programme Design and Clinical Governance
Guides clinical and operational leaders through designing a hospital-at-home programme, from admission criteria and remote monitoring to the clinical governance that keeps home-based acute care safe.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Delivering acute-level care in a patient's home rather than on a hospital ward shifts risk in ways that a traditional ward's fixed staffing and continuous observation were built to absorb, which is why a hospital-at-home programme lives or dies on its governance rather than its technology. This course builds that governance from the ground up. Participants define admission and exclusion criteria that match the acuity a home setting can safely support, design the remote monitoring protocols and escalation pathways that catch deterioration early, and set the staffing model, including visiting frequency and on-call medical cover, that a virtual ward depends on. Later sessions address the clinical governance structures specific to this model: incident review adapted to a home setting, safety netting instructions patients and carers can actually follow, and the equipment and medication supply chains that a distributed service requires. The course closes with a business case and evaluation module, covering the outcome and safety metrics commissioners expect before a pilot can scale.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Design a remote monitoring protocol with defined observation frequency and escalation thresholds.
Build a staffing model specifying visiting frequency, skill mix and on-call medical cover.
Draft safety netting instructions that patients and carers can follow without clinical support present.
Adapt incident review and clinical governance processes to a home-based rather than ward-based setting.
Design the equipment and medication supply chain a hospital-at-home service depends on.
Build a business case and evaluation framework using the outcome and safety metrics commissioners expect.
Who Should Attend
Clinical leads designing or expanding a hospital-at-home or virtual ward service.
Community and acute nursing teams delivering home-based acute-level care.
Clinical governance and patient safety leads overseeing home-based care models.
Operations managers responsible for hospital-at-home staffing and logistics.
Commissioners assessing hospital-at-home business cases and evaluation evidence.
Geriatricians and physicians providing remote oversight of home-based patients.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Admission Criteria and Patient Selection
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Defining Acuity Boundaries for Home-Based Care
- Set clinical acuity thresholds that define which conditions and severities suit home-based treatment.
- Define exclusion criteria covering social, environmental and clinical factors that rule out home admission.
- Build a structured admission checklist that a referring clinician completes before a home admission.
- Pilot admission criteria against retrospective ward cases to test how many would have qualified.
Session 2Referral Pathways and Point-of-Admission Assessment
- Design referral routes from the emergency department, wards and primary care into the programme.
- Conduct a point-of-admission home assessment covering physical environment and carer availability.
- Agree consent and expectation-setting conversations that explain the home-based care model to patients.
- Set a same-day response standard for accepted referrals to keep the pathway credible to referrers.
02Remote Monitoring and Escalation Design
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building the Remote Monitoring Protocol
- Select monitoring parameters and frequency appropriate to each admitted condition and its risk profile.
- Choose remote monitoring technology and define the fallback process when a device or connection fails.
- Set alert thresholds that trigger clinical review without generating excessive false alarms.
- Define the roles reviewing monitoring data and the maximum time allowed before a flagged reading is actioned.
Session 2Escalation Pathways and Safety Netting
- Design an escalation ladder from routine review through urgent home visit to hospital readmission.
- Draft safety netting instructions in plain language that patients and carers can act on unsupervised.
- Test escalation pathway timings against a simulated deterioration scenario end to end.
- Coordinate escalation with ambulance and emergency department teams so readmission is not delayed.
03Staffing, Governance and Incident Review
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Designing the Home-Based Staffing Model
- Set visiting frequency and skill mix by patient acuity across the programme's caseload.
- Design on-call medical and nursing cover that can respond to an escalation at any hour of operation.
- Plan staff travel routes and caseload geography to keep visiting times realistic and safe.
- Define competency and training requirements specific to delivering acute care outside a hospital building.
Session 2Adapting Clinical Governance to a Home Setting
- Adapt incident reporting and review processes to capture events specific to a home care environment.
- Set clinical audit standards for monitoring compliance, escalation response time and readmission rate.
- Define lines of clinical accountability between visiting staff, remote monitoring teams and named physicians.
- Run a governance walkthrough of a simulated adverse event from occurrence to closed action.
04Logistics, Business Case and Evaluation
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Equipment and Medication Supply Chains
- Design equipment deployment and retrieval logistics for a distributed, home-based caseload.
- Set medication supply and administration processes appropriate to home rather than ward dispensing.
- Build a maintenance and decontamination cycle for monitoring equipment returned between patients.
- Plan supply chain contingency for equipment failure or shortage during periods of peak demand.
Session 2Building the Business Case and Evaluation Framework
- Build a business case comparing hospital-at-home costs and outcomes against equivalent ward-based care.
- Select outcome and safety metrics including readmission rate, adverse events and patient experience.
- Design an evaluation plan that can distinguish programme effects from wider system changes.
- Present pilot evaluation findings in a form that supports a scale-up funding decision.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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