Specialized home care for patients with AIDS: an experiment in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Patients with AIDs are permanently dependent on medical and technical nursing care. During a certain phase of the disease some of the patients have to visit the out-patient clinic of the hospital for regular treatment. It was noticed that AIDS patients find these visits a severe burden. Therefore in Rotterdam an experiment has been started to provide them the technical-medical and nursing care at home instead of at the out-patient clinic. During the experiment, specialized hospital nurses visited the patients at home. They worked in close collaboration with the community nurses. An exploratory study was carried out to assess the prospects and difficulties of this new kind of home care for AIDS patients from a medical, psycho-social and organizational point of view. The results suggested that it is possible to relocate the technical-medical and nursing care from the out-patient clinic to the patients' home. This specialized home care is seen as desirable from the perspectives of the AIDS patients and informal and professional caregivers. However, some organizational aspects, like the co-ordination and communication among caregivers and the availability of the specialized hospital nurses during the weekend, must be improved in the future.