A local home hospital program is changing the way some patients are now getting care - and it's often free of charge.

Irene Glavan from Stratford says she got RSV right after Thanksgiving. It turned into pneumonia.

When she was at Bridgeport Hospital, they told her about a hospital-at-home program called Home Hospital. It's the first in the state.

She thought it was too good to be true.

"They sent me home with an IV, they sent me home with a wrist band, and they said you are a patient of the hospital and you can't leave your home," said Glavan.

Glavan, like other patients in the program, had access to nurses and doctors 24/7 - both in person and on the phone. There's even an around-the-clock staffed mission control call center. Patients have all the care they need, as if they never left the hospital.

"They are really grateful to be able to stay in their home and get cared for. They can be amongst their loved ones. They don't have to keep going in and out of the hospital," said Stacey Lane, with Bridgeport Hospital.

Bridgeport Hospital says in order to qualify for the program you have to be 18 years or older, you cannot be pregnant, and you have to be within a 25-mile radius of the hospital. And they say 75% of insurance companies will cover it.

Glavan says Medicare completely covered her care.

"People should get to know this, that there's this program out there and it works so well because it’s like the wave of the future," said Glavan.

A program that came out of overcrowding in hospitals during COVID is now literally home sweet home.

Bridgeport Hospital says about 275 patients at Bridgeport Hospital and Yale New Haven Hospital have now benefitted from the program since it started last June.