Response: Re: Home Visits and the Social Context

To the Editor:

Dr. Frey’s¹ excellent comment adds an additional argument for house calls. How can we know our patients if we do not know their life circumstances? House calls are a great opportunity to teach our residents cultural competence by immersing them into the culture of their patients and community. House calls are far more commonplace in other cultures and countries. In Japan, as well as in France, house calls are legally required of physicians. In my native Germany, house calls to patients with limited mobility are legally required of primary care and specialist physicians.² All these countries rank higher than the United States in quality of medical care, and their populations have greater longevity.³ As outlined in the commentary,⁴ the evidence supports house calls for reducing hospital readmissions, length of stay, nursing home placement, functional decline, and mortality. House calls may just be the key to improving our quality of care.