Recommendations in the Drummond report probably aren’t a surprise to those working in health care, a local hospital official says.
The report suggests getting patients away from costly hospital visits and stays.
Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre executive vice-president Lori Marshall said that fits in with the hospital’s strategic plan.
“We want to ensure patients are receiving the right care in the right place at the right time and we recognize that in many instances patients are either being readmitted to our organization more frequently than elsewhere or being admitted more than elsewhere or needing to come to the hospital for visits that potentially could be managed by another organization or provider,” she said.
One of the reasons people go to the hospital so frequently is that they may not know there are other health care providers out there. There are also cases where they hospital might be the only provider.
Marhsall said the hospital is trying to keep patients at home. One area of health identified in the report is congestive heart failure. Patients have historically been returning to hospital but since last fall, a home monitoring service has been in place for local patients.
Marshall said that program has shown a lot of promise.
