Patients go home for care. But do their doctors make house calls?

Caring for a patient at home no longer consists simply of a black bag and a stethoscope warmed in the physician's palm. No longer is it a quarantine sign the physician tacked up on the front door, or a thermometer and an injection of penicillin. Today, taking care of a patient at home often involves sophisticated equipment, a highly trained staff of nurses and allied professionals, and a set of skills and a body of knowledge with which many physicians are neither familiar nor comfortable.