EDUCATE PATIENTS!
The more educated the patient becomes in their disease and treatment, usually the fewer panicked runs to the emergency room and a huge savings in future medical and hospital costs.
One example is the oximeter, a great tool for lung patients. Using it, patients learn for themselves how pursed lip breathing can bring their blood oxygen levels up.
It is not enough to tell a patient…show him or her.
Rachael Pritchett wrote a not-surprising article:
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/may/10/charity-and-climbing-costs-bring-recession-home/#comments
“The Cost Of Care
Tom Kruse, Harrison’s vice president of strategy and business
development, points to stalled plans to enlarge Harrison’s
Silverdale campus. The hospital recently announced plans to cut
staff and close its behavioral health unit.
The big-picture solution is to fix a health-care delivery system
that Kruse said is “fundamentally broken.”…
Rather than universal health care, Kruse said a system that
replaces the current one should have patients who are accountable
for their own health through good habits; physicians who are
cost-conscious without letting quality suffer; and insurance
companies that profit less.”
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Absolutely make patients accountable for their own health.
First, EDUCATE patients to the likely future health consequences of (smoking) for one example. Don’t ‘tell’ them, SHOW them.
Make complacent doctors responsible for suggesting early detection testing to their patients! (Spirometry is only one one example)
I bought my own oximeter for $300 and practiced until I proved to myself I could bring my own numbers up from the basement 70’s to the safe blood/oxygen range of the 90’s attic.
How?
By sitting very still, eating and drinking nothing and a total
focus on pursued lip breathing as I watched my numbers climb from
the 70’s to the low 90’s.
I wore the oximeter on a string around my neck until it trained me. These days my blood/oxygen ranges in the high 90’s.
I do know the ‘Exertion number’ play and understand it. Unfortunately, it is subjective and means different things to different people.
The oximeter is precise and proves to the patient using it that she/he CAN manage a shortness of breath situation that previously sent them to the very expensive emergency room.
EDUCATE PATIENTS!
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Comments
Posted by familien1 on May 10, 2009 at 11:05 a.m. (Suggest
removal)
“… the system is broken at both ends, both for Harrison and for the
people .. can’t get to a doctor except through the emergency
departments.” …
Safety net for whom?
“… Harrison .
“We are the safety net for the community,” Cochrell said.”
For how long?
Harrison Medical Center is the community ‘lifeboat.’
As Harrison (lifeboat) continues to take folks aboard far beyond the weight limit of the lifeboat’s ability to stay afloat, at some point the lifeboat will sink and all aboard will drown.
Harrison might be forced to close her doors and be of no benefit to anyone.
I do not have an answer or solution…other than to say EDUCATE the patients on what they can do to best help themselves, thus making fewer panic trips to the emergency room.
I have made trips to the er in the last few years, but not for
COPD. It is the subsequent medical conditions.
Nevertheless, without a community hospital, insurance is a moot
point. The long term seems to be that one hospital after another
will close their doors.
So. Harrison Medical Center…whatever you do, do it fast, will you?”
