Introduction:

Hospital-at-home and classic hospitalization are two models of care. The sustainability of the National Health Service is a current issue given the scarcity of resources; the implementation of home hospitalization contributes to the discussion about its economic impact.

Objective:

Identify and synthesize the best available evidence on the cost and effectiveness of hospital-at-home versus classic hospitalization; identify which implementation model has the best cost-effectiveness.

Methods:

Systematic Review of Literature, according to the protocol of the Joanna Briggs Institute. The selection of studies and the evaluation of their methodological quality (with instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute) were performed by two researchers. In the initial research, 146 studies were identified, and five were included.

Results:

Hospital-at-home was considered more cost-effective than classic hospitalization.

Conclusion:

The evidence shows that home hospitalization is more cost-effective than classical hospitalization. However, it needs more studies covering the costs for the user/family/caregivers and economic evaluation studies with higher methodological quality.

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