Above: The hustle and bustle of Interstate 75/85 in Atlanta, aka the "Downtown Connector." Courtesy Wikipedia."ATLANTA CAN'T LIVE
WITHOUT GRADY."
From the Grady Health System main page.
Although health care is a quintessential part of society today, the 2008-09 recession has shown that money could still be more powerful. One example: Grady Memorial Hospital of Atlanta was about to be closed in 2008 after gathering $53 million deficit, produced due to the hospital's dedication to taking care of those disadvantaged for health care in the region. However, with the following statistics showing how crucial the hospital is to the area, it would seem that closing should have not been an option:
1. It takes in 850,000 outpatients and 30,000 inpatients each year.
2. It has Georgia's only Poison Control Center.
3. It is the area's only Level 1 Trauma Center
4. It is Atlanta's main safety-net hospital.
5. Its network includes Grady Memorial Hospital and 9 more area community clinics.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Grady Memorial Hospital was featured in an article about the holes appearing America's current safety-net.
Okay, pause for a second.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a safety-net hospital is a hospital that serves a significant amount of low-income, uninsured, and disadvantaged populations. One thing that really surprised me about the definition of a Safety Net, is that ownership (public or private), isn't really the factor, but other determinants, from philosophy (e.g. having an "open-door" policy for care) to usage (i.e. proportion of incoming patients with low-income or proportion of people who utilize medicare). Most of these hospitals are eligible for what they call Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments from the government, which aid the hospitals for the costs of providing uncompensated care to those uninsured or under insured.
Whew.
Fortunately, with private donations and grants, the hospital was able to stay for the most part, open. The dialysis clinic at Grady was forced to close. Grady has done much for its patients to assign them to temporarily set them up with other clinics and to help ease transitions for those patients struggling. Although the damage to the hospital itself was minimized, there were patients that were still critically affected by the situation.
Closer to my neck of the woods, the main Safety Net Hospital of Chicago, John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, is a refuge for those without health insurance benefits. According to a September MSNBC story, these disadvantaged patients are very happy to have some place to go. However, recent health care reform may reduce DSH payments to hospitals such as Grady and Stroger, potentially weakening important links in our health care system, leading to reduced coverage and maybe closure for some institutions. We've seen already how financially tight things are at Grady, for all I know there could be another handful of hospitals that are teeter-tottering in the same financial situation.
To me, the idea of losing funding for these hospitals could be disastrous. Personally, I think that its dangerous to cut funding from these hospitals, as health care for more than the low income could be affected. One hypothetical situation that I thought of is if these high capacity hospitals are closed, where else will these people go? Potentially to other hospitals that are not prepared for the added patients, stressing the rest of our health network in America. A unseen domino effect might be on the horizon.
I personally think that there are other options that are not being looked over, such as tort reform (e.g. protecting doctors from suits, so we can work more efficiently without having to worry about our backs) and many inconsistencies and inefficient ways that medicare and medicaid are being provided. Sometimes I think that the government is attempting to do so much to health care right now that if something goes wrong, we won't be able to figure out what made it go wrong, due to the extreme complexity of our health care system.
Like I said a couple of months ago: I'm all for reforming the system, but we need to be careful and think about all the potential consequences of our decisions in the long term. It concerns me that things that may appear to be good for us now might not be good for the next generation.
Sources:
1. Forum on Displaced Grady Dialysis Patients Held. Atlanta Progressive news. December 7, 2009.
2. The Grady Health System main page.
3. Redlener, I. and Grant R. America's Safety Net and Health Care Reform - What Lies Ahead? The New England Journal of Medicine. December 3, 2009: 2201-2204.
4. Will safety net hospitals survive health reform? MSNBC / AP. September 8, 2009.
5. What is a safety net hospital? National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems.
WITHOUT GRADY."
From the Grady Health System main page.
Although health care is a quintessential part of society today, the 2008-09 recession has shown that money could still be more powerful. One example: Grady Memorial Hospital of Atlanta was about to be closed in 2008 after gathering $53 million deficit, produced due to the hospital's dedication to taking care of those disadvantaged for health care in the region. However, with the following statistics showing how crucial the hospital is to the area, it would seem that closing should have not been an option:
1. It takes in 850,000 outpatients and 30,000 inpatients each year.
2. It has Georgia's only Poison Control Center.
3. It is the area's only Level 1 Trauma Center
4. It is Atlanta's main safety-net hospital.
5. Its network includes Grady Memorial Hospital and 9 more area community clinics.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Grady Memorial Hospital was featured in an article about the holes appearing America's current safety-net.
Okay, pause for a second.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a safety-net hospital is a hospital that serves a significant amount of low-income, uninsured, and disadvantaged populations. One thing that really surprised me about the definition of a Safety Net, is that ownership (public or private), isn't really the factor, but other determinants, from philosophy (e.g. having an "open-door" policy for care) to usage (i.e. proportion of incoming patients with low-income or proportion of people who utilize medicare). Most of these hospitals are eligible for what they call Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments from the government, which aid the hospitals for the costs of providing uncompensated care to those uninsured or under insured.
Whew.
Fortunately, with private donations and grants, the hospital was able to stay for the most part, open. The dialysis clinic at Grady was forced to close. Grady has done much for its patients to assign them to temporarily set them up with other clinics and to help ease transitions for those patients struggling. Although the damage to the hospital itself was minimized, there were patients that were still critically affected by the situation.
Closer to my neck of the woods, the main Safety Net Hospital of Chicago, John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, is a refuge for those without health insurance benefits. According to a September MSNBC story, these disadvantaged patients are very happy to have some place to go. However, recent health care reform may reduce DSH payments to hospitals such as Grady and Stroger, potentially weakening important links in our health care system, leading to reduced coverage and maybe closure for some institutions. We've seen already how financially tight things are at Grady, for all I know there could be another handful of hospitals that are teeter-tottering in the same financial situation.
To me, the idea of losing funding for these hospitals could be disastrous. Personally, I think that its dangerous to cut funding from these hospitals, as health care for more than the low income could be affected. One hypothetical situation that I thought of is if these high capacity hospitals are closed, where else will these people go? Potentially to other hospitals that are not prepared for the added patients, stressing the rest of our health network in America. A unseen domino effect might be on the horizon.
I personally think that there are other options that are not being looked over, such as tort reform (e.g. protecting doctors from suits, so we can work more efficiently without having to worry about our backs) and many inconsistencies and inefficient ways that medicare and medicaid are being provided. Sometimes I think that the government is attempting to do so much to health care right now that if something goes wrong, we won't be able to figure out what made it go wrong, due to the extreme complexity of our health care system.
Like I said a couple of months ago: I'm all for reforming the system, but we need to be careful and think about all the potential consequences of our decisions in the long term. It concerns me that things that may appear to be good for us now might not be good for the next generation.
Sources:
1. Forum on Displaced Grady Dialysis Patients Held. Atlanta Progressive news. December 7, 2009.
2. The Grady Health System main page.
3. Redlener, I. and Grant R. America's Safety Net and Health Care Reform - What Lies Ahead? The New England Journal of Medicine. December 3, 2009: 2201-2204.
4. Will safety net hospitals survive health reform? MSNBC / AP. September 8, 2009.
5. What is a safety net hospital? National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems.
