The house call is a phenomenon that hearkens back to the olden days in America. Largely phased out after about the 1950s or so, house calls just weren't done all that often. Bringing back images largely popularized in Norman Rockwell paintings, the idea of the doctor coming out to a patient while in a sickbed pretty much dried up in favor of the central office and the hospital. But now, the practice is starting to come back, thanks to a recent effort from True North Health Navigation as part of an effort in Denver, Colorado.
True North Health Navigation, according to the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), is the first mobile emergency medical unit of its kind, able to gather information about users via the health information exchange (HIE). The HIE allows for rapid connection through a series of medical records systems, and allows for a variety of lab test, pathology, and similar medical records to be routed, quickly and securely, to the mobile unit.
The mobile unit is generally sent to “non-life threatening 911 calls,” and uses the information it gathers to help get a better handle on just what's wrong with the patient in question. When the mobile unit arrives at the scene, it can more readily diagnose and treat patients, in the field, instead of having to route said patients back to a hospital's emergency room. To that end, the mobile unit is stocked with a variety of medical supplies, including a full lab to process both blood and urine tests, and can perform basic functions like catheter replacement as well as splinting and suturing.
The cost savings are perhaps the most impressive part of the entire operation; reports suggest that, by eliminating the costs involved in transporting the patient to the emergency room as well as the overall costs involved with the emergency room visit itself, the use of the mobile unit saves about $3,000 for every patient it visits. This in turn drops the amount filed on health insurance claims, and helps save the patient in question some significant money as many are left to pay a larger portion of health costs.
Indeed, this is an idea that bodes well. Consider the many simple, yet somewhat urgent, points an emergency room has to deal with in a day. Broken arms and legs, for example, or stitching up a wound taken from broken glass or the like. Any of a huge number of simple household injuries that most any doctor could address, but need to be addressed in rapid fashion, including during times when a doctor may not be available. The True North Health Navigation mobile unit is a perfect example of how to get that care where it's needed without bringing in a full hospital situation, and that in turn represents big savings for the system as a whole. It allows patients to carry out recovery practices at home, in a familiar and welcoming setting, rather than in a sterilized hospital that's often neither of those points, and overall, the system saves time, resources...and of course, money.
The True North Health Navigation system may not save the healthcare system as we know it—which is itself somewhat ailing—but considering the kind of money it can save, putting one of these in play can represent a significant advantage for users and for the system as a whole.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
