The coronavirus is running rampant through senior residential facilities, especially nursing homes. One source: Hospitals.
Ten years ago, as the conveyor belt of medicine geared up, profiteering hospitals learned to discharge patients as rapidly as possible. Some patients went home, but to expedite the transition, the path of least resistance was sending them to nursing homes.
To make them more palatable, nursing homes were rebranded as skilled nursing facilities, and many further enhanced their name to post-acute rehab. Yet, the care and reputation did not change.
Fast-forward to our present crisis. The glitch: Hospitals do not have to reveal whether medical staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and continually hide behind the guise of confidentiality and HIPAA, shunning voluntary self-reporting. (Legally true in California. Legislators, are you listening?)
The existing hospital administrative attitude of get em in and get em out could therefore have created a vicious cycle of discharged patients contaminating residents at nursing facilities.
Moms, dads, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, veterans, retired teachers and first responders have been some of those vulnerable victims.
The roots of the present problem lie in the past, but we must dig in the future to connect the dots.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D., is a geriatric house-call physician who serves as president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults and Assemblyman to the California Senior Legislature. He has practiced in the Santa Clarita Valley for 32 years.
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Connecting the Hospital-Nursing Home Dots | Doctor's Diary with Dr. Gene Dorio - SCVNEWS.com
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