Coordinated Care Leads to Better Health

Yesterday, I posted an article about managed care, and how it can be helpful for seniors, but not always. Because managed care is something that’s implemented by insurance companies, the focus is sometimes on finances, and not always as beneficial as it can be. As the population ages, this is changing, but change can be slow and it’s not always universal.

 

Today, I wanted to talk about something with a similar name, but a very different outcome for elderly individuals. That is coordinated care.

 

Coordinated care refers to different individuals, both professional and caregivers, working together in someone’s life to give them the best care possible. This makes sense, but it is one of those things that is much easier said than done. Usually, coordinated care refers to teams of physicians, but it can expand far beyond that.

 

The current research on coordinated care says that when physicians work together to treat an elderly individual, there is a better chance that the person will receive a higher quality of care. This isn’t because some doctors are better than others, but because different doctors have different pieces of information regarding a patient. When that knowledge is shared, the patient can more effectively be treated. One of the more recent studies that pointed to this concept was actually a meta-study of about 25 previous studies that had taken more than 12,000 patients into account.

 

Coordinated care has been shown to help seniors live a higher quality of life.

 

When everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goal, that goal becomes much easier to achieve. When the goal is a loved one’s health, it is a very important one. That’s why coordinated care is so helpful in the lives of the elderly individuals that we work with on a daily basis.

 

With privacy laws such as HIPAA, coordinated care can become more difficult to achieve, but it’s not impossible. As a family member, we are not asking you to give out information that you don’t want to. Rather, as a group of caregivers, we want the best for the people that we care for. If there are health issues, it’s important that we know about them so that the right steps and precautions can be made. This is an important component of senior care. By getting everyone on the same page when it comes to the care of a loved one, the people working with your family can do a much better job. Teamwork can go a long way in other aspects of life, but when it comes to the health of someone you care about, it can be extraordinarily effective at increasing the quality of life that they experience.

 

The bottom line: When everyone works together, better senior care is provided. We value communication and do everything that we can to ensure that our caregivers keep their eyes open and pass on any and all useful information to the rest of the family. If this is what has been shown to help our clients the most, then we will keep doing it. After all, our goal is the same as yours–to give your family members the best care that we can.

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