Written by Carolyn Shinn, Vice President, Clinical and Quality Process Excellence at Healogics.
A recent Advisory Board article stated that “patient access” was a leading contender for the Healthcare Buzzword of the Year. Hospital executives, policy makers, insurance companies and physicians are all talking about it. We at Healogics are, too!
Why is that?
Although the term means different things for different people, for us, it means ensuring our patients get the right care at the right time. You’ve heard the numbers. There are over 6.7 million patients suffering from a chronic wound. We’re only caring for a fraction of those in our wound centers today.
Despite all of our very best efforts at getting the word out, wound care remains a bit of a secret. If a patient, or a provider needing help with a patient, finally finds us, it means that their wound has gotten bad enough that they went searching for something more.