DO Patients really have CHOICE with their admission or discharge planning ?
Patient Choices in NYS
This is an excerpt from THE TIMES UNION newspaper about hospitalizations going down while Flu cases are increasing!
Flu cases keep rising in NY state, hospitalizations down
Updated 5:46 pm, Friday, February 16, 2018
FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018 file photo, a nurse prepares a flu shot at the Salvation Army in Atlanta. The U.S. government's Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 flu report showed the flu has further tightened its grip on the U.S. This season is now as intense as the swine flu epidemic nine years ago. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
ALBANY, N .Y. (AP) — State health officials say the number of New Yorkers with confirmed cases of the flu keeps rising but the number of people requiring hospitalization has declined.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that more than 16,800 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza were reported last week to the Department of Health. That's a 7 percent increase from the previous week.
Officials say the number of new hospitalizations from the flu dropped 3 percent to just over 2,400 last week.
Cuomo continues to urge New Yorkers to get the flu vaccine.Since the flu was declared prevalent in New York in December, more than 69,000 cases of lab-confirmed cases have been reported, with around 14,350 people needing hospitalization.
There have been five pediatric deaths blamed on the flu this season.
Do Patients really have Choice?
Another reason to advocate for patients!! It is so clear that one of the reasons hospitalizations are down is because it is being controlled by how hospitals make money!!
Patients do not have a say in their being able to enter a hospital when they feel really sick. They also have no Choice in their staying in any facility when they or their private Physicians agree they are not ready to be discharged. Many are released to facilities or sent home prematurely or unsafely only to return the next day to overcrowded Emergency rooms where germs are rampant . When they ask to go back to their room on the floor where they belong because that is where they were yesterday, it is another Choice they do not have! They are told it is a new episode when it was only an unsafe discharge from a day or two ago and they had zero Choice in the matter!
I would like to start a discussion with Healthcare providers and advocates . What do you think? How can we better the system that it fits all, Hospitals and Patients alike. It is important for Hospital administrations to remember that behind all the dollars we need to make "sense" and that behind all the policies and procedures there is a real Patient!!
Sara Stern
CEO
OUTREACH HEALTHCARE
"a patient's voice"
718 855 6666 phone
718 855 6555 fax
https/www.dhirubhai.net/in/sara-stern