New Orleans has a real health care problem with the poor and uninsured. Prior to Katrina, the state had a really screwed up system that pushed all the poor and uninsured to the state-owned charity hospitals. Service was bad, costly and very ineffective.
After Katrina, many of the city’s doctors and nurses haven’t returned. The charity hospitals haven’t reopened. Uncompensated medical bill have soared for the private hospitals.
The National Alliance of Health Information Technology is trying to set a new health care delivery model to help the poor and uninsured: Medical Home Model of Care.
A series of ambulatory clinics will geographically dispersed across New Orleans. They will technology-enabled. They will be physician-led teams – but staffed primarily by nurses, nurse practitioners and medical assistants.
Tulane Medical Clinic has set up on such clinic near the Superdome. LSU Medical School is setting up trailers in the parking lots of middle and high schools.
NAHIT is trying to get funding from the federal and state governments to conduct an 18-month demonstration of this new model. If it works, it could used across the country.
Such a system might work here, too.