The Cook County Hospital and Care Center is currently planning for a renovation of its facilities. I suspect that the hospital is trying to modernize its facility to 21st century standards. The very preliminary price tag is $20 million. This is a significant amount of money for a hospital that averages less than two inpatients daily.
I encourage hospital management and the board of directors to analyze future healthcare trends and the needs of the local population to ensure that any amount of money is wisely spent. There are four major trends that are applicable to rural/isolated communities including a declining need for inpatient beds, a robust EMS system, increased use of telehealth services, and definitive clinical partnerships with large urban medical centers.
There is a strong belief that if you are sick enough to require an inpatient hospital stay that you need to be in the hospital with significant medical/surgical resources available. Most patients can be treated as an outpatient and do not require hospitalization. A robust EMS system including pre-hospital as well as emergency room services is an imperative particularly when it comes to trauma, stroke and heart attack. Emergency rooms that have a telestroke program, have the level I heart attack protocol in place, and definitive relationships with large medical centers is an imperative. In many instances survival is dependent upon how quickly we respond.
Keeping people at home for medical care and follow-up after a traumatic event or a scheduled surgery such as knee replacement is better care and saves the patient time and money. Having local physical therapy for rehab of an injury or a stroke, cardiac rehab for post-heart attack follow-up, oncology/chemotherapy treatments, and developing a tele-health program for such things as dermatology, mental health, and consultation to local physicians with specialists in urban areas.
I applaud the hospital management and board of directors for looking at the physical plant needs. I hope they do that in the context of what will be the future healthcare needs of the people of Cook County. That starts by asking what are the future healthcare trends, what will be the demographics of our county, what can we provide at a high quality and at a reasonable cost. $20 million is a significant investment. How will this investment bring the greatest value both today and in the future?
Robert Stevens
Arrowhead Trail
Waconia, Minnesota
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