It is absolutely. All too often we hear that same story about community care access, getting providers out to the home with the necessary support systems, whether informal caregivers...and giving them support; getting pharmaceuticals for management of chronic disease; and getting providers, doctors, and nurses visiting in the home setting. That is much cheaper, but unfortunately the way we structure health care at the moment, it has to come from the acute care sector.
As you know, I'm the chief of staff of the fourth-largest hospital in the country, and our budget is over $1 billion. Yet today we spent about $60,000--that's in one day at one hospital--for care that could be provided much better out in the community. We must have systems in place that will allow us to move these institutional dollars into home care dollars. If we're going to be successful in the future, we have to do that. We cannot use our acute care sector as a default for a failing chronic disease management system.