by
Nancy Ryerson, Staff Writer | August 06, 2013
From the August 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
To the good though, I would say it has created a compelling case for change and the way we work with community providers. And I think to the community’s benefit it has helped us be less hospital centric and more community based. An example of that is how we’re working together with nursing facilities to see how they work, and how we can reduce the risk of patients being readmitted. We’ve done substantial work around this area and have lower rates of readmission than most in the area.
DMBN: What projects or expansions is the hospital working on?
TR: We continue to look at how we can help our independent physicians transition to some kind of group model, or help them if their preference is to remain independent. We have begun pilot projects, to improve quality and reduce cost of care for different patient cohorts. We have opened up a patient- centered medical home that has done quite well. The advantage is we have these wraparound services for the frail and elderly that allows us to treat their co-morbidities more effectively. We’re very excited about that and hope to expand. We’re expanding our palliative care program to be more outpatient instead of inpatient, of course. And, we’ve added a program called MOMS. There’s only a couple of programs like this in the country. It provides a setting for women who suffer from post-partum depression, and have the need for an acute level of care. It’s very rare to find these programs, and that has gone exceptionally well.
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