Doctor David Levine has been announced as the winner of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s 2016 BRIght Futures Prize for his work striving to provide older adults treatment at home instead of traditional hospitalization, according to a press release.
As the winner of the prize, Levine will receive $100,000 for continued research in this field.
Levine’s research project called “Home Hospital” was the driving factor for this award. The project, through use of a vital-sign monitoring skin patch device, allows doctors and nurses to check a patient’s heart rate and other metrics remotely. The project aims to solve the common problems of high cost of hospitalization for older adults and the associated risks of hospitalization, such as risk of catching an infection. Levine’s team advocates for visits from doctors and nurses, treatment with medications, blood tests, and monitoring to all occur from home. They believe that this provides the same safety and quality as traditional hospital stays and also provides improved patient satisfaction and reduced medical costs.
“For many conditions, home hospital will transform our concept of safe, high-quality, cost-effective care,” said Levine. “We want to build a better model of care for ill adults in need of hospitalization. Some procedures will always need to be done in a hospital setting, but in certain cases, home may be the best place for a patient to receive care, monitoring, and treatment.”
The technology used for Home Hospital also allows medical professionals to monitor their patient’s activity and track their sleeping habits, and enables communication via video conference and in-home visits.
Winners of the contest are selected by public voting. For more information about the BRIght Futures Prize, and to watch a video about this project and the other finalists, visit http://www.discoverbrigham.org/brightfutures/.