Hospitals and seniorcare: separating myth from fact.

Not every hospital should attempt to serve the senior market. For the right hospitals, it can be extremely rewarding, both professionally and financially. A hospital management team should be able to answer "yes" to most of the following questions if they want to proceed. Do 65+ persons exceed 12 to 15 percent of the population in your service area? A concentration of senior persons is required to provide a sufficient market for services. Are there organized groupings such as lifecare communities, adult communities, etc. within you service area? Marketing efforts can be targeted to these groups, including personal calls and special physician programs. Do you have physicians/groups that specialize in geriatric care? These groups provide the basis for quality care and will help promote the interest of other physicians in senior programs. Do you have strong cardiac, oncology, and orthopedic programs? These are the areas most often used by senior patients as they progress through their experiences with chronic illnesses. Do you have an aggressive and developing social work group? Social workers help locate patients in the service area, provide a basis for group activities, and outplace patients after a hospital stay. Is the volunteer group strong, populated with 50+ individuals and looking for more to do? Seniors are excellent emissaries in the community and they relate well to inpatient seniors who are often reluctant to interface with ill peers. Is your facility a low cost provider, i.e., can you break even or better on Medicare? Having a seniorcare program will obviously increase the Medicare numbers in the hospital census.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)