MEDICAL VISITS

Medical home visit  is available from our medical team, 24 hours a day. 

By choosing HOMED you have a number of unique advantages:

• Free electronic prescription.
• Free blood collection for blood tests.
• Telemedicine connection of the visiting doctor with the rest of the medical team, at the time of the visit. 
• Same day blood test results.
• Send all exams by email.
• Free telephone communication with the doctor after the visit. 
• Free patient registration as a member for easier future communication.
• Payment also by credit/debit card, possibility of installments.

Theoretically, doctors of all clinical specialties can make home visits, but we choose that the visits are made by doctors with a specialty of general medicine , or even pathology, as:

• Each symptom can refer to various conditions , which do not correspond to the knowledge of a single specialty. Examples: A chest pain may be due to coronary artery disease (cardiology), gastroesophageal reflux (gastroenterology), pneumothorax (surgery), pleurisy (pulmonology), herpes zoster before rash (dermatology). An abdominal pain may be due to irritable bowel (gastroenterology), acute abdomen (surgery), malignancy (oncology), renal colic (urology), abdominal vascular disease (vascular surgery), spinal disease (orthopaedics), lower infarct (cardiology), appendicitis (gynecology).
• In addition to the cause of the specific discomfort, often the general medical examination reveals the coexistence of other pathological conditions, which the patient has not noticed or underestimates their importance. Examples: The patient may think he needs a pulmonologist because he feels short of breath, but the general practitioner finds swollen lymph nodes and findings from the abdomen, which strongly suggest metastatic cancer. The patient may think he needs a cardiologist because he has felt palpitations in the chest, and the general practitioner (in addition to investigating the cause of palpitations, which he has the requisite knowledge to perform) finds that diabetes has affected one of the patient’s legs and it is threatened with amputation. The latter finding may be more important and require more immediate treatment than the discomfort for which the patient sought help.

Some of the cases for which a medical home visit is usually requested are:

• People with severe mobility problems .
• Intense discomforts (pains, vomiting, high fever, etc.), due to which a movement would be unpleasant.
• Lack of available health facilities , such as public hospital outpatient clinics which usually involve long delays.
• Avoiding communicable diseases due to sharing with other visitors to the clinics. 

What should be the capabilities of a physician making a home visit for a first-time emergency?

• The physician must have diagnostic breadth , to be able to evaluate the patient’s symptoms with horizontal thinking, across all areas of internal medicine and surgery, unlike subspecialists who may miss an important finding some other specialty.
• To have basic diagnostic tools available , such as e.g. the electrocardiograph or ultrasound.
• To have the possibility of direct blood tests and paraclinical tests, such as X-rays and ultrasounds.
• Doctors from certain specialties of the medical team should be available for consultation and support , to whom the visiting doctor can have easy access by phone or even the ability to send data, such as the electrocardiogram.
• To have at his disposal basic first aid medicines and parapharmaceutical material , in case he needs to put e.g. a urinary catheter or nasogastric tube.
• To have the possibility of nursing visits, if it is deemed necessary to continue the care of the patient with hospitalization at home , or the provision of oxygen.
• There should be an alternative solution of a private clinic that meets the safety and adequacy criteria for the specific incident and the cost of hospitalization should be completely predictable and above all treatable.

For the above reasons, our company always staffs the team of home visiting doctors, based on their adequacy in terms of these characteristics, knowledge and skills, when the diagnosis from the telephone description is not clear, such as e.g. in the case of skeletal injury from a fall, the patient will be seen by an orthopedist.

That is, while a knee injury or a fracture/dislocation of the shoulder clearly needs orthopaedics, on the contrary, an abdominal pain, a shortness of breath or a loss of consciousness, can be related to a multitude of conditions from the entire spectrum of Pathology and Surgery. So a request for a gastroenterologist because the patient feels discomfort in the abdomen, such as pain and indigestion, is definitely inappropriate and can lead to dangerous delays, since the problem can be cardiac, surgical, vascular, hematological, gynecological, pathological and not gastroenterological. Similarly, shortness of breath can hide a cardiac, surgical, pathological problem and not purely pulmonary. Likewise, chest pain does not necessarily mean a cardiac problem . 

For the best service, please remember:

• Call immediately 1144 or 210 80.60.098
• Talk to a doctor
• Clearly describe the problem

 

During the medical visit the doctor of 1144 can:

• To use the portable diagnostic equipment available (cardiograph, blood gas and biochemical parameters analyzer, ultrasound, etc.).
• Administer emergency medications from the fully equipped mobile pharmacy.
• Administer serums.
• To place a urinary catheter or a nasogastric catheter.
• To open an abscess or suture a wound.
• To stop a bleeding (e.g. nosebleed).
• To perform an evacuation puncture of the abdomen.
• To perform an evacuation chest puncture.
• To suction bronchial secretions.
• Administer oxygen from a portable oxygen concentrator.
• To take blood, urine and other biological materials for immediate examination. Urgent tests (those not done at home) are done in a very short time after the sample arrives at the laboratory.

Cases in which the patient is transferred to a hospital environment are:

A. Acute and life-threatening condition (pulmonary edema, intestinal obstruction, acute anuria). Hospitalization begins immediately with the medical visit and the medical unit does not leave the patient’s home until he is transferred to a hospital.

B. A condition that is not immediately life-threatening, but requires hospital care and intravenous drugs  (severe respiratory or urinary tract infection, severe dehydration, seizures, uncontrollable vomiting, electrolyte disturbances, severe gastroenteritis, fever of unknown etiology).

HOMED doctors are partners in selected private hospitals and clinics. They take care of the patient’s immediate transport and supervise his treatment as a doctor, until he returns home, where they monitor his recovery for as long as necessary. Thus, the patient’s hospital care continues seamlessly without delays and discontinuities.