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Understanding Post-Acute Care

By EmpowHER November 1, 2011 - 12:07pm

When most people think about getting critical health care services, they think of hospitals. Not so long ago, a person stayed at a hospital as long as he or she needed for recovery. However, there has been a fundamental shift in the modern health care paradigm.

Today, traditional hospitals are geared to deliver short-term critical care. Their primary goal is to stabilize patients in a step toward recovery and then discharge them.

When patients are well enough to be discharged from a traditional hospital but not well enough to care for themselves, post-acute care fills the void. Post-acute care continues the appropriate care in a long-term care facility, rehabilitation centers, or with home care.

About 3.2 million hospital patients each year require post-acute care, according to the American Health Care Association. For a majority of patients, post-acute care is provided only until the patient is well enough to go home— typically about one to three months. However, some patients – roughly 5 percent of the adult population— require some sort of post-acute care for the remainder of their lives.

Long-term acute care hospitals (LTACs) are designed to deliver specialized care to patients who are critically or chronically ill and require the extended recovery time that short-term acute care hospitals may not be equipped to provide. Several independent and government-sponsored studies have reported that LTAC hospitals treat the sickest patients. The LTAC’s primary mission is to reduce patient trauma, cost and the risk of needing to be re-admitted to a traditional acute care hospital.

As with any hospital, LTAC hospitals have attending physicians and specialized teams available to serve patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Generally speaking, as in a traditional hospital setting, LTAC hospitals have specialized and integrated units within the facility to deal with patients requiring extended or less intense care. For example, a skilled nursing center may be better suited for patients who need less than full long-term acute care, but still require multiple services – such as late-stage cancer patients, or those requiring physical therapy or physician-treated wound care.

Transitional care centers are another type of post-acute care. These facilities focus on short-term rehabilitative patient care -- after hip or knee surgery, for instance, or other procedures that require intensive and supervised physical therapy. The goal is helping patients recover to the highest level of independence possible.

To learn more about post-acute care facilities or find consumer resources, visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/compare/partnership-for-patients/resources/transitions.html

The Associated Geriatric Information Network Inc. web page offers resources for older people at http://www.agininc.com/info.html

Sources:

Phase II report: Long-Term Care Hospital Payment System and Monitoring and Evaluation. RTI International. January 2007, p 20.

National Quality Measures Clearinghouse. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, US. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Post-Acute Care Functional Status. Accessed online 6 Oct. 2011 at http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/content.aspx?id=27138

Kaiser Commission on Medicaid Facts. Medicaid and Long-Term Care Services and Supports. Feb. 2009. accessed online (pdf) 6 Oct. 2011 at: www.KFF.ORG/KCMU

Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals. Kindred Healthcare website http://www.kindredhealthcare.com

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