Healthcare Reform and Effect on Hospitals
Health Care Reform impact: Fewer ER trips, more home hospitals
This article explains how health care reform is centered around the consumer. It’s based on patient rights, lowering the cost of health care for patients and offering a better quality of care. Larry Mullins who is the Samaritan Health Services president and CEO, believes, “reform is designed to offer one stop shopping with doctors, nurses and specialists and health care navigators to work the patients before they even get to the hospital, so look at what a new hospital will look like will be designed around prevention.” Mullins thinks the idea here is to renovate, remodel or replace the existing hospital. The goal is to figure out what a hospital system is going to look like in the future and then build around that. Mullins believes a challenge and a goal of health care reform is to convince the public of the benefits to them. “We have to make sure that the public accepts the change,” Mullins said. “They need to understand why we are doing this and how the reform is in their best interests. So it is going to take a lot of education.”
The idea of “home hospitals” is the growing technology fields in health care and the use of virtual technology. “People are just more comfortable at home”, Mullins states. He believes that the same amount of care can be provided at home at one fourth of the cost of providing it in a hospital setting. Could the future of hospitals be in a patient’s home, could we be reverting back to the old times with doctors visiting patient’s in their homes with new use of technology? Depending on the circumstance, that can be an option. That is an interesting
This article explains how health care reform is centered around the consumer. It’s based on patient rights, lowering the cost of health care for patients and offering a better quality of care. Larry Mullins who is the Samaritan Health Services president and CEO, believes, “reform is designed to offer one stop shopping with doctors, nurses and specialists and health care navigators to work the patients before they even get to the hospital, so look at what a new hospital will look like will be designed around prevention.” Mullins thinks the idea here is to renovate, remodel or replace the existing hospital. The goal is to figure out what a hospital system is going to look like in the future and then build around that. Mullins believes a challenge and a goal of health care reform is to convince the public of the benefits to them. “We have to make sure that the public accepts the change,” Mullins said. “They need to understand why we are doing this and how the reform is in their best interests. So it is going to take a lot of education.”
The idea of “home hospitals” is the growing technology fields in health care and the use of virtual technology. “People are just more comfortable at home”, Mullins states. He believes that the same amount of care can be provided at home at one fourth of the cost of providing it in a hospital setting. Could the future of hospitals be in a patient’s home, could we be reverting back to the old times with doctors visiting patient’s in their homes with new use of technology? Depending on the circumstance, that can be an option. That is an interesting