come aren���t useful only during surgery;
they���re useful during life!���
To explain how the health care system
has increased the need for wellness programs, Mike Bell, Executive Director of
Concord Health Care Center in Concord,
draws upon the example of his own childhood bout with appendicitis. ���I had my
appendix out and stayed in the hospital
for two weeks,��� he remembers. After two
weeks, he was considered fully healed and
returned to his normal life.
Today, almost no one, child or adult,
stays in the hospital for two weeks following surgery. But conversely, patients ��� particularly adult patients ��� are not usually
expected to resume their normal lives postsurgery without any help, either.
���When wellness gets interrupted, we are
part of the process in restoring it,��� Bell says.
Currently, due to much more stringent
managed care and insurance regulations,
hospital stays are far shorter than they
were in the past. So hospitals are increasingly turning their attention to ensuring
that patients don���t need to return following discharge as a result of not being ready
to manage their own recovery.
This is where a facility such as Concord
Health Care Center comes in. It provides
the kind of services that can help people
bridge the gap from intensive hospital care
to independent life at home. Following
their hospital discharge, patients can stay
at Concord Health Care Center for followup care and education in all of their health
SPRING/SUMMER 2013
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north bridge magazine
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39