For Devonport resident Tammy Milne, getting COVID was a frightening prospect.
Ms Milne has a musculoskeletal condition and paralysed vocal cords.
"It makes each breath that I take quite difficult, and takes up a lot of energy, so getting COVID with those conditions was really scary for me," she said.
When the disability advocate caught COVID-19 during a holiday in Hobart, a stay in hospital seemed likely.
She was relieved when she found she was able to be cared for in her home by Tasmania's COVID@home virtual care program.
Nurses assessed her condition over the phone and remotely monitored her temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturation levels.
Medication and groceries were delivered to her.
"I'm really chuffed … I mean, the fear of contracting COVID and then the reality of how well I was looked after, it was just amazing," Ms Milne said.
She was happy she didn't have to go to hospital.
"Really, home's the best place to be, I think in my own environment with the supports that I needed."
COVID@home frees up hospital beds
More than 10,000 people have used the COVID@home program since Tasmania opened its borders to hotspots on December 15 last year.
It's been offered to people who test positive for COVID-19 through a PCR test, or report a positive RAT.
COVID@home nurse manager Jane Palfreyman oversees a team of more than 20 nurses who staff phones and remotely monitor patients' medical readings 24 hours a day.
She said many patients had reported benefiting from being able to talk to nurses and a social worker by phone.
"Particularly for those people who are living by themselves and they don't have the support around them, being able to talk to someone and just feeling like they've got someone there is really reassuring," she said.
Ms Palfreyman is glad the program has prevented unnecessary hospital stays.
"The cost of a hospital bed is huge so, absolutely, I think this has been an incredibly worthwhile and cost-effective program."
Flu patients to qualify for virtual care
Tasmanian health department secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks estimates COVID@home has kept hundreds of COVID patients out of hospital.
"So through March and April when we're seeing those [COVID-19] hospitalisation numbers moving into the 50s, we also have some 700 to 1,000 patients being cared for virtually here at COVID@home," she said.
Tasmania's public hospitals regularly struggle with bed-block, when full acute hospitals beds mean patients in emergency departments can't be admitted.
The department's latest dashboard figures show that, on average, only a little over half of people who go to emergency departments at public hospitals were seen within four hours.
As Tasmania approaches the winter flu season, the department hopes extending the COVID@home program will help prevent influenza patients from overwhelming hospitals, while they also cope with COVID patients.
The COVID@home Plus program will be available for use by people who test positive for influenza and other common winter respiratory illnesses.
"If we know that you've tested positive for influenza for example, we can get you into COVID@home and provide that same monitoring and assurance that you are safe to recover at home, or you can get the treatment that you require," Ms Morgan-Wicks said.
"[We're] trying to make sure that we do save those acute beds in hospital for those who really need them, whether it's from severe COVID, pneumonia or the impacts of the influenza season."
Calls to further extend access
The chief executive of Health Consumers Tasmania, Bruce Levett, is on the COVID@home steering committee.
He said when the program first began, some patients struggled to get through to the health department to register for it.
"But then the feedback was that once people got through, they were really pleased with the service they got and they felt comfortable and safe in getting that treatment," he said.
He believed the program had addressed healthcare access and people's desire to be treated at home rather than in hospital.
He welcomed the extension of the program to treat influenza and other winter respiratory ailments, but he wants the virtual care model to be extended to help Tasmanians with other health conditions.
"We would love to sit down with the department to look at other areas where the community could benefit from a COVID@home-type program in other situations," Mr Levett said.
"We would really encourage the government to extend that because access to health care is really, it's really biting, and all levels of government need to do more around access to healthcare."
