The following article featuring Our Lady of Consolation was printed in the May 28, 2004 edition of the Long Island Business News. For more information on Our Lady of Consolation Nursing and Rehabilitative Care Center please contact us at (631) 587-1600.

Our Lady evolves with health-care continuum
by KENNETH R.CERINI

The health-care continuum is constantly changing. While it used to be that elderly people were often shipped off to nursing homes as a final disposition, today skilled nursing facilities have evolved and are an integral part of the health-care delivery system. Our Lady of Consolation Nursing & Rehabilitative Care Center is part of that shift.

"[We] are providing much more post-acute care and more diversified specialized programs," said Dennis J. Verzi, president and CEO of Our Lady. "Many more of the patients that we admit are for the short term, and more are being successfully discharged to their homes."

Cerini: To what extent have you had to restructure your facilities because of the evolution in the services you offer?

Verzi: Our traditional focus has been providing compassionate residential long-term care to the elderly who could no longer care for themselves. Although the core of our mission remains unchanged, our expanded vision now includes the delivery of post-acute and specialty clinical services to adult patients of all ages.

We've responded to those changes through physical upgrades, the introduction of new technologies, program development and strategies to advance the clinical capabilities of an already skillful and dedicated staff.

In 1998, an additional 200 beds were added to deliver a higher level of health care without sacrificing our intent to provide quality of life through a home-like environment. The number of beds for post-acute care expanded from 20 to approximately 80 beds during the past three years. The remaining beds are mostly for long-term residential care, but some are for chronic, clinically complex cases and individuals who need end-of-life care. The new construction also included an enlarged and modern full-service rehabilitation department and therapeutic recreation department.

Cerini: What has created the change in the role of nursing homes?

Verzi: Health-care services are continuously changing, mostly because of advances in technology, changes in the practice of medicine, insurance companies and governmental payment methodologies, and workforce dynamics. As a result of decades of medical research and health education, people are living longer. But more important than how long they are living is how much better they're living without the need to go to nursing homes. So we've seen nursing homes provide services that were traditionally provided by hospitals, and home health-care services are fulfilling the needs that nursing homes once did.

The biggest impact of the changes in the health-care continuum is the increased demand for post-acute-care beds since hospital stays have become much shorter. More procedures are being done on an ambulatory basis or in non-hospital settings such as clinics. Hospitalization is avoided altogether or the length of stay is very short.

For some patients, however, complications or co-morbidity factors increase their need for treatment in terms of time and intensity. For example, an individual may go into the hospital for a hip fracture, which could involve a relatively short length of stay. But then their recovery process is complicated by other health problems that tend to develop at a greater frequency as people age, such as diabetes and cardiovascular and renal disease. They need more care after the acute spell of illness but may not qualify to stay in the hospital any further. That is now becoming the evolving role of Our Lady in the health-care continuum and in response to the changing needs of our community.

Cerini: In what ways has Our Lady kept up with these needs?

Verzi: With the emphasis on shortening lengths of stay within the hospital setting, stakeholders such as patients, their families, hospital personnel, private insurers and governmental payors are looking for cost-effective, high-quality alternatives for those who are not ready to go home but no longer need acute care.

Increasingly, Our Lady is seeing a more clinically complex type of patient much earlier in their recovery. As a consequence, the type and number of health-care providers that we employ are always being evaluated for clinical staffing effectiveness.

Furthermore, we're always looking at our area's census statistics and local health-status demographics. We conduct surveys and perpetually look for opportunities for improvement. We work collaboratively with our sponsor, Catholic Health Services, to identify and respond to the unmet health-care needs of all residents of Long Island.