I want to comment on how the health care system can provide that transfer and that connection with the community. We talk about an acute event: a broken hip, a stroke, or a seizure. There is a project happening in Toronto--and I'm sure it's happening elsewhere also--called “virtual ward”. That consists of taking the acute ward, or monitoring the ward after an acute incident, and taking it home.
What do they do? They still discharge you after two or three days, but they follow you home with a case manager. Usually a nurse practitioner will monitor you on a daily basis, check you in, maybe order more tests if necessary, do everything they might do for you while you were in the hospital but in your home. This allows you to stabilize in your own home and look for options for rehabilitation and long-term care in your own home and the opportunity there is to prevent readmission. The value of preventing each readmission was estimated to be $10,000. So there's your opportunity right there to provide a win-win situation.