By Maiken Scott for Newsworks
Hospitals, especially in poor urban areas, tend to see a relatively small group of patients who are constantly in and out of their facility.
To provide better care for these patients, cut costs, and avoid penalties for high readmission rates, Temple University Hospital is trying a new approach: connecting at-risk patients to drug treatment.
“We have 80 patients that account for 400 admissions a year, 80 patients, that’s huge,” said Steven Carson of Temple’s Institute for Population Health. After crunching the data on their regular patients, he said, it became clear that about 20 percent have a substance abuse problem that impacts their overall health. “So they are in and out of our emergency room, they are sicker with their chronic conditions.”
Read the full story, New Temple project sees medical crisis as catalyst for drug treatment at NewsWorks.
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