Ill. Fire Department, Medical Center Partner for MIH Program

June 22--ROCKFORD -- A partnership between the Rockford Fire Department and OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center will reinvent "the house call," officials said today in unveiling a new community medical outreach program.

The program is designed to help patients understand their medical conditions and health care instructions. The new program targets those in the population who repeatedly call 911 and use the hospital's emergency room to address chronic illnesses, or are elderly and either frail or have physical limitations, officials said.

"Many times, people are getting their medical care in the wrong place," said Jane Pearson, OSF emergency medical services director. "Often, patients can't understand discharge instructions" or instructions about their medications.

The focus is on helping patients understand these instructions, she said, and how their health could be affected if they don't follow a doctor's orders. The program begins this week.

Preventative care could reduce those calls to 911 and trips to the emergency room, proponents explained, although they stressed that this new partnership is not designed to reduce "super users:" those residents who repeatedly call 911 to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room for medical issues that might not require that type of care.

"There could be 100 patients we see on a regular basis," said Rockford Fire Lt. Robert Vertiz, who serves as emergency medical services coordinator for the department. "One hundred patients could account for 10 percent of our calls -- rough estimate."

Fire Chief Derek Bergsten said his department received about 21,000 medical calls last year. Fire officials didn't have a breakdown showing the number of people who repeatedly dial 911, nor the number or percentage of calls for which those individuals are responsible.

At SwedishAmerican Hospital, a so-called "super user" program is in place to try to reduce those frequent 911 callers. That program has been going on for about a year, said Emergency Medical Services Manager Tom Pratt, and also involves a partnership with Rockford Fire. The SwedishAmerican Foundation plans to donate $100,000 to Rockford Fire this year and next year to support a community paramedic program that would target super users.

Pearson said nationally, an estimated 30 percent of medical care is occurring "in the wrong places." Through this partnership, Pearson said they will take a "subset of patients and help them by doing house calls."

These are the individuals who have no primary doctor, Vertiz said, have a lack of family or social support, or don't have health insurance.

Bergsten said the program will target patients with select medical conditions. These are strokes, diabetes, renal failure, dialysis treatment, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart attacks and orthopedic injuries such as broken bones and fractures.

Kristen Zambo: 815-987-1339; kzambo@rrstar.com; @KristenZambo

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