With Hospital at Home programs, hospitals can deliver inpatient-level care in patients’ homes. Three THOT members — University Health, Parkland Health, and Harris Health — are among the 400 hospitals and health systems nationwide that operate these innovative, patient-centered programs.
Authority for such programs originally was granted as a COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) waiver. With the end of the PHE in 2023, Hospital at Home authority has been extended multiple times through Continuing Resolutions, most recently in November 2025 to extend authority through the end of January 2026.
THOT supports making permanent the authority to operate hospital at home programs.
Harris Health launched its Hospital at Home program in early 2024 and has cared for nearly 330 seriously ill patients needing inpatient care in their homes. Learn more from their program leaders and how the program is key to extending the system’s capacity to care for a growing population.
One of the first hospitals in the country to launch a Hospital at Home program, University Health invested in the program to extend its care capacity. About 4,000 patients, including oncology and post-partum obstetrics patients, have received care through Hospital at Home since July 2021. Learn from the hospital’s vice president of health innovation about patients’ preference for the program and the need to reauthorize the program permanently to ensure the clinically and cost-effective alternative to brick-and-mortar inpatient hospitalization can continue.
Parkland Health’s Hospital at Home Program has cared for more than 1,000 inpatients since its launch in April 2022 and created more care capacity with nearly 7,700 additional bed days. Read more from its program leaders on why Hospital at Home is the future of medicine and how it delivers operational efficiencies, offers greater patient choice, and empowers patients.
Continuing the Hospital at Home authority as an ongoing, reliable and effective option for care is critical for extending hospitals’ inpatient capacity, alleviating strain on limited inpatient beds, and mitigating the need for resource-intensive and lengthy construction of additional brick-and-mortar units and facilities. Permanent authorization of the program is needed to end cyclical program risk of expiration and care disruptions.
Ongoing uncertainty sows distrust and skepticism about the program, which undermines our long-term goal of having a clinically and cost-effective alternative to brick-and-mortar inpatient hospitalization.
In a rapidly growing county like Harris County, we need additional inpatient capacity today, and Hospital at Home is an essential care capacity extender.
Hospital at Home is a proven care option that should have its place as an ongoing, permanent, and reliable component of our health care system.
On any given day, we might have 50+ patients in our emergency department waiting for an inpatient bed to become available. With Hospital at Home, we have a proven, safe, and effective means of immediately extending our inpatient capacity.
What better place to take care of patients than in their own home. We know what their social support looks like, what their diet and routines are, what challenges their physical environment might present, and we can plan around those for post-discharge success. We’re empowering patients, optimizing efficiencies, reducing cost, and getting better outcomes.
2023 Legislative Outcome
House Bill 1890 – Passed
In addition to federal authorization, state authority for hospital-at-home programs is needed. HB 1890, by Rep. Jacey Jetton (R-Katy), created that authority in 2023. The bill was effective with the Governor’s signature on May 27, 2023. Read more.