Several years ago, Dr. Corey Waller, an emergency department physician at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI, noticed a small group of patients were frequent flyers in the emergency department.  Dr. Waller decided to quantify what he had noticed anecdotally.

The result was a list of 950 patients who had visited the Emergency Department at two of Spectrum's hospitals more than 10 times each in the previous year.  These frequent flyer miles totaled up to 20,000 hospital visits and an estimated $40 million in costs.

Another study at Southcentral Foundation Health System in Anchorage, Alaska, discovered that most of their system's high utilization patients fall in to three categories:

1.  Patients with chronic mental illness
2.  Patients who are "medically fragile elderly"
3.  Patients who engage in self-care and have few family resources 

How Can Home Health Help?  

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The Big Event each year in home health care, hospice, and private duty home care is the National Association for Home Care and Hospice annual convention.

This year's convention will be in Orlando, Florida on October 21 - 24, 2012 at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center.

Stephen Tweed, CEO of Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company, has been a speaker at the NAHC conference every year for over 20 years.  Each year, Stephen creates a new program based on the most recent research conducted by Leading Home Care, and based on the latest forces and trends shaping the industry.  

Permission is granted to healthcare publications, associations and companies to reproduce this article in your publication, or to distribute copies to your leaders, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Home Health Care Today. Copyright 2012 Stephen C. Tweed. To receive a FREE subscription to this newsletter, log on to www.leadinghomecare.com"