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outcomes they achieve, reflects [an] outdated approach to care and is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.