Want To Save Rural Hospitals? Send Patients Home To Recover, Study Argues | Fox 11 Tri Cities Fox 41 Yakima

Key Takeaways

Sending hospital patients home early might help save rural health carePatients recovering with home health care cost 27% less than those who remained in a hospitalThe patients also were more active and happier

MONDAY, Dec. 8, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Discharging hospital patients early to recover at home might be key to saving rural health care, a new study says.

Rural patients cost a good deal less to care for during recovery at home than in a hospital, researchers recently reported in JAMA Network Open.

What's more, those patients tend to be happier and more active than those who stay in the hospital for the full length of their recovery, researchers found.

"Rural health care is in a crisis, and we need to think differently," lead researcher Dr. David Levine, clinical director of research & development at Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home in Boston, said in a news release.

"Hospital-level care delivered in patients' homes has improved healthcare delivery in urban settings but may fill an even greater need in rural areas, where longer transit times, poor accessibility, and hospital closures challenge access to high quality care," Levine added.

More than 150 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, and more closures are feared due to cuts in the Medicaid program, researchers said in background notes. Given that, new ways need to be found to care for sick folks in rural areas.

For this trial, researchers recruited 161 people who were hospitalized for treatable illnesses like infections, pneumonia, heart failure, COPD or asthma. The patients were drawn from two rural hospitals, one in Kentucky and the other in Canada.

Half of the patients were sent home to recover after less than three days in the hospital. There, they received hospital-level home health care services. The other half remained in the hospital for the length of their treatment.

Those sent home benefitted from health technology innovations -- a wireless sticker on their chest