Twenty years ago, Cabrini Health did a deep dive on the latest research and existing Hospital in the Home (HITH) programs, then hand-picked all the best parts to create Cabrini’s own HITH offering.

Now, 20 years later, Cabrini is celebrating the thousands of patients and hundreds of thousands of visits that our HITH, staff and now our Chemo in the Home team, are delivering in patients’ homes over two very special decades.

Wednesday, 18 February is 20 years to the day that Cabrini HITH was established – a program that long-time Cabrini At Home figures, Michelle Horsnell and Jennifer Silvers, were heavily involved with from the Program’s onset.

“We started out with five nurses serving 10 to 12 patients, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to now managing 600 patients at any time across our Cabrini at Home services. HITH now has 29 nurses and seven doctors,” Michelle said. “It’s grown and grown and grown, and there’s been an evolution of the Program.

“The acuity of the patients we see in their homes has definitely changed, the technology has changed, and the road traffic has certainly changed, but that critical thinking and adaptability that HITH nurses have to have – when you don’t have everything you need at your fingertips like you would in a hospital – that’s still there.

“I’m so passionate about this Program, the holistic care we provide, and this attitude that our team has – this ‘how can we’ mentality, not ‘we can’t’.”

For eligible patients, HITH is a no-brainer, Jennifer said.

“We initiated the Program to improve patient quality of life and recovery rates,” she said.

“But the research is now showing that it extends beyond that. It shows that patients cared for in their own homes benefit from reduced falls, reduced over-investigation, reduced overstimulation and cognitive decline, compared to hospital settings.

“The Program works, and I’m very proud of it and the care that we’ve been providing for 20 years.”

To celebrate the significant milestone, we will be sharing HITH and CITH patient and staff stories across our channels over the next few weeks.

Read about our HITH services