Cleveland Clinic Says Stay Home, Get Better

The health system launches its Hospital Care At Home programme in northeast Ohio, targeting patients near its Fairview and Avon hospitals

2 Apr 2026

Cleveland Clinic launched its Hospital Care At Home programme on March 25, 2026, giving patients near its Fairview and Avon hospitals in northeast Ohio the option to recover from serious illness at home rather than in a hospital ward.

The programme covers conditions including pneumonia, sepsis, COPD, cellulitis, and asthma. Patients are assessed through an emergency department or inpatient setting before being discharged home with vital-signs monitoring devices, a tablet for video consultations, and a direct line to Cleveland Clinic's Clinically Integrated Virtual Command Center. The hub is staffed around the clock by physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. Scheduled home visits provide blood draws, mobile imaging, and intravenous therapies.

Cleveland Clinic first ran the model at its Florida locations in 2023. Since then, more than 4,000 patients have used the programme, and the health system reports a measurable fall in hospital readmissions. The Ohio rollout scales the virtual command centre infrastructure to support a new patient population.

The expansion follows Congress's decision to extend Medicare's Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver through September 2030, enacted as part of the FY2026 spending package signed in February. The five-year federal commitment has encouraged investment across the sector. Nearly 400 hospitals in 37 states are now approved under the waiver, and analysts expect further growth as health systems respond to the regulatory certainty.

Operational constraints persist. Eligibility criteria are deliberately narrow, and sustaining the logistics of home visits and remote connectivity requires continued investment. Access gaps remain for patients in rural areas or those without reliable home internet.

Whether the model can be extended equitably, and at scale, beyond well-resourced urban health systems remains an open question.