7:15am – 8:00am
Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast

8:10am – 8:50am
Clinical Models and Care Delivery Approaches: From Rapid Launch to Mature Programs
Hospital-at-home programs vary widely in structure, from hybrid models combining twice-daily in-home nursing or paramedic visits with virtual provider check-ins to more technology-intensive approaches relying heavily on remote monitoring and telehealth. Learn how to determine optimal visit frequency, structure clinical teams, provide access to labs, imaging, pharmacy and specialty consults in home settings, and decide what services to provide directly versus through partnerships with home health agencies, community paramedicine programs and technology vendors.

Lindsay Williams, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, PHN, PMP
Director, Clinical Operations
Cedars-Sinai at Home 

8:50am – 9:30am
Staffing Models and Workforce Development
Building high-performing hospital-at-home teams requires thoughtful workforce strategies that address unique challenges including travel time between patients, working independently in home settings, managing unpredictable schedules and maintaining clinical competencies across diverse acute conditions. This session explores staffing approaches including use of registered nurses, paramedics with specialized training, advanced practice providers, social workers and community health workers, along with optimal team structures, scheduling models and ratios. Learn strategies for recruiting and retaining qualified staff, providing training and ongoing competency assessment, supporting staff safety in community settings, maintaining morale and preventing burnout, and compensating teams appropriately given the demands of home-based acute care delivery.

Teresa Thacker BSN, MBHA
Clinical Manager / Advanced Care at Home
UNC Health

9:30am – 10:00am
Networking & Refreshments Break

10:00am – 10:40am
Patient Selection, Clinical Protocols and Safety Management
Successful hospital-at-home programs require rigorous patient selection criteria, evidence-based clinical protocols and comprehensive safety management systems to ensure appropriate care and minimize risk. This session explores eligibility criteria that balance clinical appropriateness with operational feasibility, including assessment of home environment safety, caregiver availability, technology access and patient willingness to participate. Learn protocols for managing common acute conditions and select post-surgical patients, along with strategies for early recognition of clinical deterioration, emergency response procedures, medication management in home settings and coordination with emergency medical services when escalation of care is required.

Adrian Carrola, DNP, RN, VA-BC
Director of Patient Care Services
Hospital at Home
Vascular Access Team
University Health    

10:40am – 11:20am
Sponsored Session

11:20am – 12:00pm
Clinical Innovation and Program Expansion Strategies
Explore emerging trends for expanding hospital at home services beyond traditional acute care models, including adding new service lines, incorporating specialty care and integrating with other home-based programs.

Jared Huber, MD
Medical Director of Home-Based Care
University of Utah Health 

12:00pm – 12:40pm
The Missing Pillar of Hospital at Home: Integrating a Proven Caregiver Support Model to Reduce Admissions, Enhance Outcomes, and Strengthen Equity
Hospital‑at‑Home (HaH) programs are transforming acute care delivery by shifting high‑acuity services into the home, yet most models overlook a foundational factor that directly influences safety, readmission risk, adherence, and patient experience: the family caregiver.

Duke Health has built one of the nation’s most robust, data‑driven caregiver‑support infrastructures fully integrated into our EHR/EMR (Epic). What we have learned is clear: caregiver capability is often the determining factor in whether a patient remains safely at home.

Our session will demonstrate why caregiver support must be intentionally designed into Hospital‑at‑Home models and how doing so delivers measurable improvements in clinical, financial, operational, and equity outcomes.

Nicole Clagett, BSW
Director
Duke Caregiver Support & Community Development

Cooper Linton, MSHA, MBA
Associate Vice President/Entity Leader
Duke HomeCare & Hospice 

12:40pm – 1:40pm
Luncheon

1:40pm – 2:20pm
Scaling Hospital at Home: From Pilot to Enterprise Program
Moving beyond successful pilots to scaled programs that serve significant patient volumes across multiple sites requires attention to standardization, quality consistency, technology infrastructure, operational efficiency and sustainable financial performance. This session examines strategies for expanding from single-site pilots to multi-hospital programs, determining optimal service area sizes and patient volume targets, building centralized versus distributed operational models, standardizing protocols and technology while allowing site-specific adaptation, training staff at new locations, maintaining culture and quality during rapid growth, and making data-driven decisions about where and how to expand.

Julia Jeter
Vice President, Enterprise Hospital at Home
Advocate Health 

2:20pm – 3:20pm
Panel: Achieving Clinical Quality and Safety Outcomes That Exceed Hospital Performance
Hospital-at-home programs must demonstrate not only comparable safety to hospital care but measurable improvements in outcomes to justify investment and earn clinician confidence. This panel brings together clinical leaders whose programs have achieved impressive results including lower readmission rates, zero or near-zero medication errors, fewer hospital-acquired conditions and higher patient satisfaction scores. This session will explore quality and safety metrics that matter most, strategies for maintaining clinical excellence while scaling rapidly, approaches for managing complications and adverse events when they occur, methods for transparent reporting and continuous improvement, and tactics for overcoming initial physician skepticism about home-based acute care safety.

Panelists:
Wendelyn Bosch, MD
Medical Director, Advanced Care at Home Command Center
Mayo Clinic 

Alexander R. Levit, MD
Medical Director – Hospital at Home
LPG Hospitalists
Lee Health System, Inc.

Jared Huber, MD
Medical Director of Home-Based Care
University of Utah Health 

3:20pm – 3:50pm
Networking & Refreshments Break

3:50pm – 4:30pm
Strategies When Hospital At Home Programs Are Not Available
In the Chicagoland Area, hospital systems are overwhelmed and bursting at the seams. Emergency Room wait times are 8 - 12 hours before patients see a doctor. ICU patients are holding in ERs for 1-2 days before being transferred to an appropriate ICU bed. Medical/Surgical and Telemetry patients are spending their entire admissions in the ER.

A true Hospital at Home Program brings acute, hospital-level care into a patient's home using remote monitoring, telehealth and in-person visits from nurses and doctors for conditions such as pneumonia, heart failure, infections and COPD. A few requirements for eligibility include the following:

• Patients must need acute care but be stable enough to remain at home and have supportive caregivers willing to assist.
• The care team provides daily in-person nursing visits, daily physician visits (often virtually), remote monitoring, lab draws and often mobile imaging.

Despite the dire need for a Hospital at Home program in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, this phenomenon has yet to materialize, likely due to staffing challenges, patients not having supportive family members willing to remain with the patient and other challenges. As a result, patients are hospitalized for exacerbations of chronic conditions and discharged from the hospital earlier due to insurance mandates and denials leaving patients vulnerable and readmissions inevitable.

Heroes Home Health has successfully integrated the following services for our home health patients:

• Visiting Physician Groups who will see patients within 48 hours of discharge from the hospital.
• Visiting Wound Care Providers who will provide wound care orders and follow the patients weekly.
• Visiting Laboratory Services.
• Pharmacy services to delivery medications to the patients home (free of charge).

These services allow hospitals to discharge patients safely, decrease the risk of readmissions, guarantee post-discharge follow up and prevent serous safety events from occurring due to premature discharges (due to insurance denials).

Heroes Home Health has also partnered with the City of Chicago's Department of Aging to assist in obtaining homemaker services more expeditiously and provide a one-time monetary gift for medical supplies or equipment not covered by their insurance.

Heroes Home Heath's Statistics on Preventing Unplanned Hospital Care:

• How often patients remained in the community after discharge from home health: 81.6% (National Average 77.7%)
• How often patients were re-admitted to the hospital for a potentially-preventable condition after discharge from home health: 4.5% (National Average 4.1%)
• How often patients were admitted to the hospital for a potentially preventable condition while receiving home health care: 10.7% (National Average 10.8%)

The presentation will discuss how these partnerships were started, integrated, and successful. As well as obstacles and strategies for success.

Tricia E. McVicker, JD, RN, BSN
Director of Nursing/In-House Counsel 
Heroes Home Health                 

4:30pm – 5:10pm
Legislative and Regulatory Strategy and Opportunities in the Hospital-at-Home Waiver Program

As the Hospital-at-Home model continues to demonstrate its value, its long-term success (and permanence) will depend on sustained legislative support and strong understanding at both the Congressional and regulatory levels. This discussion will explore how stakeholders can effectively navigate the complex policy and political landscape, communicate the program’s impact in meetings with policymakers, and address the key legislative and regulatory issues that must be resolved to achieve permanent status. We will also examine strategic considerations for expanding the program and identifying opportunities to refine and enhance the waiver to support broader adoption and long-term sustainability.

John Learn
Government Relations Manager
BayCare Health System

5:10pm
End of Day One