Victoria - Public Hospitals Policy and Funding Guidelines 1997-1998
Section A: Policy
7.2 Hospital in the Home
(HITH) Program
In 1997-98, $5 million will be allocated to the HITH Program as part of a four year funding commitment announced by the Government in May 1995. The remaining funds will be allocated in the next two financial years. The 1997-98 HITH Program represents Phase 3 of the HITH Program.
The HITH Program is part of the Government's strategy to provide consumers with greater service options by incorporating a home based component (partial substitution) or a complete home based alternative (full substitution) to an episode of acute care.
The majority of Program funds have been provided to Health Care Networks/hospitals as incentive funding to further develop and provide home based acute care as a viable alternative to hospital based care. In 1997-98 incentive funding will move from a WIES based to a per diem allocation. Incentive funding will continue to be the focus of the HITH Program over the next three financial years, however the level of incentive funding available to any given hospital will be reduced as activity levels increase. Government incentive funding ceases at the end of the 1999-2000 financial year. In this context, the Program has been refined to encourage Health Care Networks/hospitals to review and develop their HITH services to ensure that they are clinically appropriate, cost effective and offer a sustainable means of acute care substitution when incentive funding is no longer available.
The objectives for the 1997-98 HITH Program are to:
- Continue to provide incentive funding for the provision of home based acute care on a per diem basis in addition to existing casemix payments.
- Enhance home based acute care services development by establishing a services development pool to fund applied research and promote the development of home based acute care.
- Formulate policy, taking account of the findings and recommendations of the 1996-97 service audit; the recently completed evaluation of the HITH Program; and information gained during 1997-98.
A new feature of this year's Program is the establishment of a pool of funds for service development to be allocated on the basis of submissions. During 1997-98, the Department in collaboration with providers, will also initiate a costing study of home based acute services.
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Policy and Funding Guidelines
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