Press Release

Amedisys’ Chief Medical Officer Encourages Patient-centered Care-at-home for People with Advanced Illnesses in Gundersen Book Having Your Own Say: Getting the Right Care When It Matters Most

06/20/2012
Company Release - 6/20/2012 1:00 PM ET

BATON ROUGE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) recognizes Chief Medical Officer Dr. Michael Fleming for his contribution to a new book from the Gundersen Health System. The book, Having Your Own Say: Getting the Right Care When It Matters Most, highlights the need for a new model of advanced care to deliver patients the results they need under the circumstances they desire. Dr. Fleming joins other contributors from organizations including health care providers, policy makers and regulators.

Dr. Fleming’s chapter, “Focusing on Patient’s Needs and Desires: Care at Home,” discusses the increasing role integrated health care at home plays in the care of persons with advanced illness. He writes, “The current fee-for-service [health care delivery] system, which pays providers for specific procedures and services rather than for the outcomes they achieve, reflects [an] outdated approach to care and is not sustainable.”

Research from Duke University found that hospice care reduced Medicare costs for seven out of ten patients, or by an average of about $2,300 per patient in the last year of life. For these reasons, Amedisys is working to deliver health care based on a model that allows for the provision of services based on the patient‘s needs much earlier on in the diagnosis, creating a truly patient-centric medical home, thus reducing costs and improving quality of life.

“Our country’s health care system is poorly equipped to provide appropriate care to patients with chronic conditions or who are dealing with serious and advanced illness,” said Dr. Bernard Hammes, Ph.D, editor of Having Your Own Say and director of Medical Humanities and Respecting Choices at Gundersen Health System. “Dr. Fleming’s chapter demonstrates how the home health care model is patient-centric. He details how this model can truly improve care for those with advanced illness and their families by allowing them to take control of and understand their treatment.”

Having Your Own Say is a collaborative effort between Gundersen, Amedisys, and other health care groups including Aetna, Sutter Health, Honoring Choices Minnesota, Respecting Patient Choices in Australia and more. It includes introductions from Michael Leavitt, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and former governor of Utah, and U.S. Senator Mark Warner from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

For more information about the book, please visit: http://www.havingyourownsay.org/.

About Gundersen Lutheran:

Headquartered in La Crosse, Wis., Gundersen Health System is a comprehensive healthcare network with a hospital and clinics throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Gundersen is a major tertiary teaching hospital, providing a broad range of emergency, specialty, and primary care services. As one of the nation’s largest multi-specialty group medical practices, Gundersen is comprised of more than 700 medical, dental and associate staff, and supported by a staff of more than 5,500. The Health System has been consistently ranked in the upper 5% of hospitals in the country by independent healthcare ratings organizations. Gundersen is known for their work to improve care at the end of life and has two internationally recognized programs on advance care planning: Respecting Choices and If I Only Knew. Respecting Choices has been implemented by more than 60 organizations or groups in the United States, is being implemented country-wide in Australia and Singapore, and is being tested in Germany, Spain and Canada. Learn more at www.gundluth.org.

About Amedisys:

Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) is a leading health care company focused on bringing home the continuum of care. Amedisys delivers personalized health care services to patients and their families in the comfort of patients’ homes. Amedisys care teams delivered 11 million patient care visits in 2011. Amedisys has two divisions, home health care and hospice. The Company’s state-of-the-art advanced chronic care management programs and leading-edge technology enables it to deliver quality care based upon the latest evidence-based best practices. Amedisys is a recognized innovator, being one of the first in the industry to equip its clinicians with point-of-care laptop technology and referring physicians with an internet portal that enables real-time coordination of patient care seamlessly. Amedisys also has the industry’s first-ever nationwide Care Transitions program. Amedisys Care Transitions is designed to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions through patient and caregiver health coaching and care coordination, which starts in the hospital and continues throughout completion of the patient’s home health plan of care. For more information about the Company, please visit: http://www.amedisys.com.

Amedisys, Inc.
Jacqueline Chen Valencia, 225-252-5091
Marketing & Communications
[email protected]

Source: Amedisys, Inc.

Contact Information

Amedisys Corporate Headquarters
3854 American Way
Baton Rouge, LA 70816
(225) 292-2031
Amedisys Executive Office
1005 17th Avenue South
Suite 610
Nashville TN, 37212