Cusack-McGuirk: “… value
and quality …”
NEW PALTZ – The landscape in the healthcare field is changing and Acting St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital President Joan Cusack-McGuirk briefed members of the New Paltz Regional Chamber of Commerce about that on Thursday.
Cusack-McGuirk said that, where the old way was to admit as many people possible, today’s healthcare is looking to provide patients with the same level, or better, healthcare without filling up ERs and focusing on preventative medicine.
“Actually, when you look back at healthcare of yesterday, it was a volume based world: as many patients as you could get in, as many CT scans as you could do, that was considered success,” said Cusack- McGuirk. “The model of today is based on value and quality: how can you really concentrate on prevention, instead of reactive medicine and how can you make sure the quality of patient care is never negotiable and keeping it at low cost.”
Cusack-McGuirk said that St. Luke’s-Cornwall alone has reduced its Emergency room volume by approximately 25 percent through utilization of these practices. She added that technology is also playing a large role in this shift, providing an example of an out-patient success that, before, would have resulted in an at least week long hospital stay. This particular patient utilized a new cell phone application that rendered hospital stay unnecessary.
“Years ago you’d run to the emergency room,” she said. “He put the app over his heart, transmitted to his physician, his physician was able to look at his tracing, said to him, ‘I will meet you at the hospital’ and they did a procedure at the hospital and he was discharged and home in his house the same day, all due to technology and the promptness and the care of the physician. This, years ago, would have been a three or four or five or six-day length of stay in the hospital.”
Cusack-McGuirk maintains that this transition, which has been utilized by many healthcare practitioners, is helping to provide quality without creating massive expense. While practitioners are extending their hours and dealing with patient requests, via cell phone or other communication not done in person, they are also encouraging patients to make better choices in their lives, hence the focus on preventative medicine.
So far, the response by patients has been positive and Cusack-McGuirk said that the continuation of focus on preventative medicine, with the utilization of technology, is creating an atmosphere where facility vacancies can remain open while still being able to provide the highest quality of healthcare to their patients.
