A technician in the living room, a whole care team on the screen: frail elders get to stay home

For a frail older person, the difference between staying home and moving to a nursing home often hides in plain sight — a loose grab bar, a forgotten pill bottle, a tired caregiver. At the VA medical centre in Indianapolis, the TeleGRACE programme sends a telehealth technician into the home with the kit, while a nurse practitioner and social worker join by screen to do the full geriatric assessment together. In an evaluation published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, just 2.6% of the 76 TeleGRACE patients entered long-term nursing-home care within a year, against 11.3% under usual care — an 80% lower risk after adjustment — and the model stretches the team's reach from 20 miles to 60. It is one centre's result and needs confirming elsewhere, but it points a way: expertise can travel, so home can stay home.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program