Novel Baycrest Hospital program a model for Ontario and beyond
When 98-year-old Abraham Bien was admitted earlier this year from home to the Acute Care and Transition (ACT ) unit at Baycrest Hospital, Ben and Hilda Katz Building, he was extremely frail, not eating and very depressed. Today, he is back home and feeling much better, mentally and physically.
The care he received was superb,” says his daughter Esther Fairbloom. “They knew exactly what my Dad needed, and they took care of his needs.”
The ACT unit serves older adults who have complex and chronic illnesses by providing them with a range of geriatric care expertise that is a unique strength of Baycrest.
This year Baycrest launched the Partnership in Sustainable Care for the Aging Population with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The ACT program is a key example of the innovative clinical approaches that support the reduction of emergency room wait times — which are stressful for frail seniors — and relieve pressure on alternative-level-of-care programs.
ACT patients are admitted from across the Baycrest campus itself, from the community at large, from other long-term care facilities, and from hospital emergency departments.
“We have the expertise and the resources to treat issues such as heart problems, infections and pneumonia from a geriatric medicine perspective,” says Judy Ritchie, Program Director of the ACT program. “For example, an elderly resident of a nursing home who develops congestive heart failure can be treated more appropriately on the unit than in an acute care hospital.”
One example of how the program benefits the system as a whole are those patients with chronic anemia who can come to Baycrest for their blood transfusions instead of waiting for hours in an emergency department where beds could be used for more urgent cases.
The ACT program is achieving results: in the past year, the unit admitted 519 patients, diverted an estimated 423 emergency room visits, and saved an estimated 11,349 inpatient days in acute care hospitals.