News & Press
“Coalition Helping Patients” Courier Post (3.22.2009)
For the past year and a half, a coalition of Camden health care providers has kept tabs on the city’s chronic hospital users in an effort to bring them better care and keep them out of costly emergency rooms. A nurse practitioner, social worker and community health aide have followed up with 92 “super users” since the pilot program launched in September 2007, offering them free in-home health care, social services and personal attention. Anecdotally, the project seemed to be working.
“An ER alternative” Philadelphia Inquirer (3.9.2009)
Emergency room doctors noticed the difference. Many of their “super user” patients weren’t coming around much anymore. These troubled people, struggling with chronic illness – and often with homelessness and addiction – routinely appeared at Camden hospitals, racking up huge bills and straining already crowded emergency rooms. One person was seen at a local ER 324 times over five years. Another sought emergency care 115 times in a single year. Yet another racked up $3.5 million in hospital bills, paid by Medicaid and Medicare, from 2002 to 2007.
“Medical plan aids patients, hospitals“ Courier Post (10.13.2008)
Between dealing with an estranged family and looking for a place to live, David Collins said it just never occurred to him to think about his health — until his drinking problem began destroying his body. This year, the 55-year-old homeless man landed in the hospital twice for a total of 43 days. Doctors diagnosed him with cirrhosis of the liver, cancer and complications from untreated diabetes. Hospital staff describe patients like Collins as “super users” — a loose term for those who show up in emergency rooms at astounding rates or spend weeks in expensive hospital care.
“Repeat ‘super users’ are swamping the ER” Star Ledger (7.13.2008)
Bean-thin and sallow, George tugged on a cigarette in the blistering parking lot of a Camden men’s shelter. Standing on the pavement, his foot on a picnic bench, he recalled how he took his fi rst drink at 13. George, here talking to a social worker in Camden, is an emergency room ‘’super user,’’ having been admitted to ERs in the small city between 30 and 40 times in the past year. The hard living shows in the lines of George’s face — and in his medical history. When he gets sick, which is often, the 55-year-old has no place to go except one of the city’s emergency rooms.
