Mayo Clinic gives postop patients comforts of home

Editor's Note

The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, is giving surgical patients an option to recover outside the hospital with comforts of home and with immediate access to a care team if needed.

The Mayo Clinic program, called “Monitoring at Charter House,” allows physicians to arrange for US and international patients who meet criteria to recover overnight after a procedure at Charter House rather than staying in the hospital.

Charter House guest apartments are outfitted with remote monitoring equipment, and patients are connected to a care team around the clock.

Postoperative patients are taken by ambulance to Charter House, and a nurse shows patients monitoring equipment and how they can take their own vital signs. The nurse also shows the patient how to press a button on the equipment, which immediately connects them by video call to the Advanced Care at Home command center at Mayo Clinic.

Postprocedure monitoring at Charter House frees hospital beds for sicker patients and those with complex needs who require in-hospital care. It also provides a solution for those who are too sick to go home after surgery but are not so sick that they need a hospital.

Because the patient is more comfortable, it speeds recovery, the Mayo Clinic says.