Photo: Patrick Perkins
When we think of an emergency, we automatically think of a range of traumatic scenarios. A car accident on the city’s largest highway. A central building downtown collapses in flames. Or worse, someone we know suddenly passes away.
In healthcare, an emergency especially feels like the end-all, be-all. And when we are forced to visit the hospital in hopes a physician can do their best work, we hope nothing more than to receive a positive outcome by the end.
Yet, recent happenings in healthcare have made it increasingly difficult to accept modern medicine for what it is. Recent headlines have shown that ERs are growing in complexity as patients wait hours just to get care, while families are grappling with the expensive repercussions afterward.
In cities like New York, where populations are particularly dense and emergencies spike often, inefficient healthcare is even more prominent. Recent data from The City Reporter cites that at a local hospital called Kings County Hospital Center in East Flatbush, patients waited an average of 27 hours to get a bed. Simultaneously, at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, the wait was nearly 24 hours from January through May this year, according to the same source.
If we put this reality into perspective, already the implications begin to add up. Patients become delayed, but physicians feel the burnout most of all. Wait rooms get overcrowded, while the actual care, when the patient is finally seen, feels highly transactional. All of this combined with the financial burdens, and now we are all living in a world where healthcare no longer works.
Moving Beyond the Traditional Approach
While for hundreds of decades, the traditional system always served communities well, now companies are looking beyond the default and considering something that actually works for patients. Not the ER, nor the standard hospitalization alone.
Instead, it is a model not widely recognized yet, but one that is emerging as patients continue to feel strain.
That is, ER-level care offered right in the patient’s home.
For companies like Care2U, under CEO Lon Hecht, that is the exact philosophy embedded into the organization, and it is becoming a popular need the more ERs are growing in its various issues.
In practice, what at-home healthcare looks like is simple. A loved one feels ill, and they call their nearest at-home hospitalization team. Within just 2-4 hours of receiving the inquiry, a designated care team books it to the patient’s front door. Immediately, the patient is cared for just as they would in a physical infrastructure. While the care team does their treatment, an appropriate physician is also on call virtually to ensure every patient gets the attention they need.
As a result of at-home healthcare, every patient finally feels the difference, and fast. The prompt treatment. The elimination of travel. The reduced exposure to infectious diseases. The tailored, one-to-one care. The comfort of their own living room.
Additionally, according to Hecht, who has been in the industry for decades and knows firsthand what kinds of strategies work, one reason why he is advocating for this new approach to healthcare is because of the financial benefit. When the treatment is brought directly to the home, costs are reduced by a fraction of visiting the traditional ER. Most of the time, insurance companies also cover this level of care.
The financial aspect is important because no family wants to pay for services they did not sign up for. On a typical hospital bill, patients are not just paying for the treatment, but also the massive overhead costs like the lighting, the architecture, and the medical tools. But when those factors are removed, now the bill only covers what the patient really needs: the care.
The Healthcare Industry’s New Stepping Stone Awaits
If so many emergency rooms are delayed, overwhelmed, and vulnerable, then healthcare systems everywhere are under an urgent call to fix this challenge. No patient wants to wait over a day to be seen, while no average human can pay thousands of dollars for an infrastructure that is not serving anyone.
However, this is not to say that hospitals are not essential, because they absolutely are. When a patient experiences a complex diagnosis that requires more hands-on care, then the hospital does in fact play an important role. But when it comes down to it, not every sickness requires a hospital bed, and recognizing what should stay at home is becoming the next stepping stone of modern-day healthcare.
For every patient now looking for a new alternative, let’s imagine a refreshed reality where the home becomes an automatic thought. Patients get to heal in a place they know and love, while quality of care still remains the core of the process. Families, too, get to support right from their comfortable spaces.
No matter what traumatic event comes next, whether it is health related or not, new strategies are rising to help communities everywhere feel safe and empowered. In healthcare, that answer is evolving quickly, and it starts right at home.