Of Hospitals and Safety-Nets

Crain’s Chicago Business recently pointed out in “Wealthy hospitals owe their heath to ‘safety nets’.” (Crain’s Feb 9) out that Chicago area hospitals cannot operate in isolation when it comes to serving the health care “safety net” population.

Hospitals and policy-makers cannot ignore the fact that the safety net health care system involves much more than acute care academic and community hospitals. The network of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and other clinics such as the Cook County system and free clinics should be important partners. FQHCs provide comprehensive primary care to over 500,000 individuals in the Chicago metro area and to almost one million in Illinois regardless of the ability to pay. They keep ill patients out of the hospital emergency room and help to reduce costs in health care system. They manage a high burden of complex chronic maladies such as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure.

Perhaps existing expanding hospitals should partner more with FQHCs and others so that emergency rooms are not the first point of care for so many safety net heath care patients.

Such is the case with several hospitals already, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which was mentioned in the Our View editorial. Northwestern works with two FQHCs on the North and North West Sides of Chicago to enhance diabetes care, improve mammogram screening rates, and to increase access to hospital-based diagnostic testing and inpatient admissions. Efforts have focused on attacking specific diseases and measuring the outcomes in a results-oriented approach.

There is no question that hospitals and government need to do more in partnership to address challenges of the heath care safety net. Strengthening partnerships with community-based health care providers is part of the solution.(End of post. Thank you for reading.)