Our Healthcare System is in Crisis! Surely Its Time To Invest In Reform?

Just How Many More Straws Can A Camel With A Broken Back Hold?

BA.5 is here and you only have to look at todays paper with the headline "Albanese calls emergency national cabinet meeting as premiers push for pandemic leave reboot" to realise we are far from out of the COVID mess.

Only this morning on my way back from the gym I heard of yet another variant of concern is now emerging in India which is BA.2.75. Early signs show it may be able to spread more rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. Although its still to early to tell, we know there will be more mutations before the year is out and we certainly aren't out of the woods just yet. There is a feeling of deja vu about these headlines but after almost 3 years of these headlines, wave after wave, variant after variant, it appears that globally frontline workers are done and internationally healthcare systems are struggling.

In the UK for the first time in recent years the Nursing and Midwifery Council register reported 25,219 and another 1780 Midwives and dual registered Nurse/Midwives left the profession in 21-22. It was an increase of 13% from 20-21 and a report released in Australia back in March 2022 on the Australian Nursing workforce reported more than two thirds of our workforce are experiencing "burnout" and there are real fears of a mass exodus from the profession in the coming years.

Now lets be honest, working in a a hospital wasn't a walk in the park pre-COVID, many times we worked understaffed, regular requests of "can you do overtime" and going without breaks was fairly common place in busy departments. But we as nurses knew this came with the territory and it was fairly apparent to the keen observer that our system was under considerable pressure from chronic diseases well before most of us had heard of Wuhan in China. But COVID most certainly has accelerated the need for healthcare reform and has highlighted just how on a knifes edge our system was previously under the strain of chronic disease.

We are at a real crossroads, the camels back was straining pre-COVID, the first wave of COVID was the straw. We are now deep into the haystack and the poor camel is on its knees. But there is real hope and there are models' of care than can reduce this strain (and cost) and maybe make the lives of our front line worker just a little bit easier.

The Daily Mail in UK ran an article on Monday which looked at the rapid increase in usage of in home patient monitoring and virtual wards across the NHS over the last few years. And for a system which has largely struggled with COVID over the last few years the results have been phenomenal. Firstly between November 2020 - February 2021 data from 37 local health authorities showed no significant impact on patient outcomes which is fantastic in itself, but its the reduction in hospitalisations and cost savings that are most encouraging.

Of the 3500 patients monitored with type 2 diabetes, heart failure and COPD there was a 22% reduction in Emergency Department presentations, compared with the matched group who did not receive in home patient monitoring.

Heart failure patients appeared to benefit significantly well with this model of care who often put large strains on the tertiary system and can spend weeks in a hospital bed. Interestingly UK now has over 900,00 people living with heart failure and the average length of stay for patients with heart failure is 10 days in the NHS. The data has shown that in home monitoring and reduced hospitalisation would achieve savings of 4000 pounds per patient per admission. So by increasing the use of in home monitoring which is now the aim of the NHS this will achieve a triple outcome:

1. Patients receive proactive care in their home and do not end up in hospital. Which in itself is a fantastic outcome.
2. Frontline staff would see a tangible reduction in Emergency presentations and admissions.
3. And the big one! It saves the healthcare system significant money by proactively managing the patients and their chronic disease.

This hospital avoidance data in the UK isn't an isolated event, in a systematic review in 2021 of 91 studies into remote patient monitoring 50% reported a reduction in hospital admissions as well as length of stay when admitted across their cohorts in the studies.

In Australia we also have another factor we must consider and that is distance and the failure of our primary care sector across regional, rural and remote communities to meet demand and much noise has been made about this recently in the media. Imagine the value, access and equity to healthcare large scale investment into nurse led in home patient monitoring could have for our most vulnerable and often most chronically unwell communities if we invested in these proactive models of care.

The time is now, we can no longer wait. Reform and action is needed and while the media is full of doom and gloom as the saying does, "the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn."

Its time for the dawn and our investment in new models of care. Our patients, our frontline workers and our system needs it.