UNM hospital one of the top in the nation
Less may equal more in terms of quality health care for some New Mexicans.
The University of New Mexico Hospital has been ranked 3rd in the nation for conservative patient care by Consumer Reports. The findings stemmed from a 2008 Dartmouth Atlas of Care study of more than 4.7 million Medicare patients at 2,878 hospitals nationwide.
Conservative care is defined in the report as "Fewer days spent in the hospital, fewer days spent in the intensive care unit and fewer doctor visits overall, usually with an emphasis on primary care."
According to a recent UNM Health Sciences Center news release:
... the study also found that patients with serious conditions who are treated aggressively for their illnesses with more tests and procedures, more specialists, and more days in the hospital, don’t live longer or enjoy a better quality of life than those who receive more conservative treatment. The Dartmouth researchers also found that patients treated most aggressively are at increased risk of infections and other medical errors that come from uncoordinated care, such as doctors prescribing drugs that duplicate or interact with other drugs. They also tend to receive poorer care, spend a lot more money for co-payments, and are the least satisfied with their health care.
The hallmark of conservative patient care seems to reside in the emphasis on primary care. The Consumer Report states:
Primary-care doctors are trained to manage the "whole person," which can help keep seriously ill people doing well and out of the hospital.
Seeing too many specialists produces "fragmentation," says Donald M. Berwick, M.D., president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a not-for-profit organization based in Cambridge, Mass. "If you have 18 doctors, you'll have more coordination problems than if you have three.
Steve McKernan, CEO of UNM Hospitals states in the UNM news release that, "The physicians from the UNM School Medicine and our hospital medical staff work closely to manage the care of our patients. The conservative approach that we have taken has paid off by reducing the number of days that patients have to be hospitalized."
That approach is most likely hastened by the fact that UNMH is the state's only Level I Trauma Center and acts as Bernalillo County's safety net facility, facts that have the hospital constantly dealing with issues of capacity. With strained resources across the state and the country, primary and preventive care are more and more becoming a way to treat a population efficiently and with the resources at hand.
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