A shifting model of care for older patients

The New York Times reports on an emerging approach that allows many elderly patients to stay in their homes and still receive the medical care and social services the usually would get in a nursing home.

The New York Times: A Shift From Nursing Homes To Managed Care At Home
Faced with soaring health care costs and shrinking Medicare and Medicaid financing, nursing home operators are closing some facilities and embracing an emerging model of care that allows many elderly patients to remain in their homes and still receive the medical and social services available in institutions. ... The rapid expansion of this new type of care comes at a time when health care experts argue that for many aged patients, the nursing home model is no longer financially viable or medically justified (Berger, 2/23).

In other Medicare news -

Medscape: Top Hospitals for Emergency Care Have 40% Lower Death Rate
Medicare patients admitted to the nation's best-performing hospitals for emergency medicine have a 40% lower death rate compared with all other hospitals, according to a new survey by HealthGrades, a Denver, Colorado–based provider of information about physicians and hospitals. Some 263 hospitals of the nation's 4783 short-term acute care hospitals were chosen among the top 5% in providing emergency care (Crane, 2/22).