Minor Medical Incidents Can Send Assisted Living Facility Residents To The Hospital Because There’s No Doctor On Site. That Could Be Changing.

The industry is starting to realize the residents in assisted facilities aren't likely to go outside to visit their doctors. So instead of turning each medical event into an emergency, some places are starting to bring the doctors in themselves.

The New York Times: Where There’s Rarely A Doctor In The House: Assisted Living
The patient moved into a large assisted living facility in Raleigh, N.C., in 2003. She was younger than most residents, just 73, but her daughter thought it a safer option than remaining in her own home. The woman had been falling so frequently that “she was ending up in the emergency room almost every month,” said Dr. Shohreh Taavoni, the internist who became her primary care physician. “She didn’t know why she was falling. She didn’t feel dizzy — she’d just find herself on the floor.” At least in a facility, her daughter told Dr. Taavoni, people would be around to help. (Span, 3/29)

In other health care personnel news —

The New York Times: Med Students Get An Extra Match On ‘Match Day’
Match Day at the University of Mississippi Medical Center is always a big deal. It’s the day medical students in their final year learn where they will be doing their residencies for the next three to five years. The nationwide system works a little like rushing for a college sorority or fraternity. Medical institutions rank their preference of medical students, and the students do the same. An algorithm determines “a match,” which the students are contractually obligated to abide by. (Krueger, 3/30)

The New York Times: Nurses Strike In New York: Threat Increases Over ‘Safe Staffing’ Levels
At Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City, the 58 tiny beds for sick newborns are almost always filled. But nurses who work there say there are often too few of them to provide all of the care the babies, and their worried families, need. One of those neonatal intensive care nurses, Shanna Murphy, says she has not forgotten the new mother who got upset when she felt her crying infant was being ignored. Ms. Murphy, 28, said she wanted to soothe the baby, but she had her hands full with another patient whose condition had become unstable and required near-constant monitoring. (McGeehan, 3/30)

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