"The Ronan Report" provides insight about the activities at the Western Maryland Health System in Cumberland, Maryland, and about the changes taking place in healthcare today from a CEO's perspective.

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Vulnerable Patient

Yesterday, I wrote about the vulnerable patient and the impact on our hospital and other hospitals.  There are solutions that we are pursuing for such patients.  First and foremost, we need to forge a relationship with our community in the care for such patients.  Many of these patients don't require hospital admission.  We need to work with them and our community partners on keeping them in their home.  Support them in their environment with personal care, home care, transitional care, medication management, better education of them and their families, meals on wheels and respite care.  We need to keep them out of the hospital unless they are truly ill and meet the requirements for an acute care admission.  We need to do a better job of advocating for such individuals and make sure that our elected leaders are aware of their plight and ours.  This issue is far from being resolved, but I think that we are on the right track at WMHS.   Even working to educate our staff and physicians on this issue is a great start.

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