Visiting Nurse Association CEO Shares Changes in Continuum of Care

Steve Adubato talks with the President and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, Steven Landers, about how the continuum of care is constantly changing and why visiting physician, hospice and community-based care is needed now more than ever.

4/15/17 #3007

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Hi, I'm Steve Adubato. It is my pleasure to welcome, for the first time, Doctor Steve Landers, President and Chief Executive Officer of a great organization called the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group. Good to see you Steve. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Steve, let's talk about the Visiting Nurse Association. What is it? Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, we're a non profit organization that works throughout the state of New Jersey, and we help people in a home setting, community setting, really on bad days when the chips are down. Maybe they're trying to get out of a hospital and need extra help. We are trying to help people when they're coming home from surgeries, joint replacement surgery, heart surgery, trying... working to help people late in life... at the end of life, with home hospice care. So that families are supported and people can have those days be as comfortable, and have as much independence and dignity as possible. Tough situations, right? A lot of hard situations. Yeah. We're doing a lot of things that people don't like to think about and talk about. Those tough days in life. Maybe days when you're in the shadow. But family caregivers are working with their loved ones. We have nurses, therapists, social workers, out there making, you know, hundreds of thousands of home visits a year in Jersey, helping people at those times. And you actually... by way of background, a family physician, geriatric medicine? That's right. Explain that to folks. What does that mean? Geriatric medicine? Geriatric medicine. I'm an elder care specialist. There's actually an advanced specialty of physician training where you can become more knowledgeable about treating older adults. People... they say over 65, but quite frankly, most people that need geriatric care are 85 and above. It's a big growth population, as you know, nationally, because of the demog... Getting bigger? ...the demographics. Absolutely. Overall. Living longer? People are living longer. But with the baby boomers, the aging of that generation is really where, you know, thousands of people a day are becoming 85 and older. That population's going triple over the next 30 years. So we've gotta... as a state, as a country, really make sure that we're able to help in that... How did you get into it? Why do you care so much about this particular population and the challenges they face? You know, I'm a family doc originally. And when I... From Cleveland? From Cleveland. That's right. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and did my medical training in Cleveland, Ohio. I worked at Cleveland Clinic running their home care and... Not a bad place? And working in their geriatrics group..."