Care@home expands to deliver more care options
14 Mar 2025
The Department of Health’s Care@home service provides vital virtual care to patients in their homes or place of residence. It has supported more than 47,000 Tasmanians experiencing and recovering from respiratory illnesses since it was established as COVID@home in December 2021.
The Care@home service is now expanding to deliver more care options.
The Acute Virtual Monitoring Program (AVMP) caters to short-term illnesses like respiratory infections and illness, including post-hospital discharge.
This program now also accepts referrals from healthcare professionals for the management of cellulitis, urinary tract infections and gastroenteritis.
The Chronic Disease Management Program (CDMP) caters to ongoing conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, COPD, and post-COVID syndrome.
What happens in the AVMP
Once a referral is received, a member of the Care@home clinical team will conduct an initial Virtual Care Assessment. This assessment will include evaluating any risk factors and assessing the person's suitability for the program and community-based care.
A personalised care plan will be developed to address the patient’s specific needs for up to 7-10 days.
Patients will be offered one or more of the following care interventions depending on the severity of their condition:
- Tailored remote monitoring care plan
- A virtual health monitoring kit to enable monitoring
- Access to a Medical Officer, Social Worker, or Pharmacist via Telehealth
- Daily check-in with the Care@home nursing team
What happens in the CDMP
Care is provided by the Care@home team in collaboration with the person’s General Practitioner (GP).
Once a referral is received, a member of the Care@home clinical team will contact the person to conduct an initial Virtual Care Assessment. This assessment will include evaluating any risk factors and assessing the person's suitability for the program and community-based care.
A personalised care plan will be developed to address the patient’s specific needs.
Patients will be offered one or more of the following care interventions based on their needs:
• Health coaching
• Care coordination
• Care navigation
• Tailored remote monitoring program (if appropriate).
Care@home is staffed 24/7 by a multidisciplinary team who provide safe and supportive virtual care at home for people needing assistance recovering from their illness.
The service can be accessed across Tasmania via a referral from a healthcare professional, or a self-referral (via a phone call on 1800 973 363).
The team can check in on patients via SMS, conduct phone or video calls and for more severe cases, can provide a virtual monitoring kit for people to check their heart rate, oxygen levels and temperature, monitored through a provided smartphone.
Importantly, Care@home is allowing patients to stay in their homes to recover and receive appropriate, individualised and professional advice and further assistance if needed.
