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Biomedical subjects

P M Densen

Publications and source records attributed to P M Densen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Posthospital needs of elderly people at home: findings from an eight-month follow-up study.

In a study of 737 elderly hospital patients discharged to their homes in suburban areas northwest of Chicago, Illinois, 60 percent were assessed as needing help with personal care or housekeeping. Only 19 percent were referred by the hospital to community service agencies and, in the immediate postdischarge period, a large proportion of help in both personal care and housekeeping was given by relatives. Eight months after discharge, however, the proportion of care provided by relatives had decreased and the proportion of paid help had increased. The use of help at both points in time was strongly related to limitations in the basic activities of daily living (ADL) at time of hospital discharge. Many patients were unaware of available community services, and 64 percent said that no one in the hospital had talked with them about managing at home. These findings indicate the need for rethinking criteria for hospital discharge planning, more effective communication between service providers and patients, and community focus of attention on elders coming home from the hospital.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

The elderly and the health care system: another perspective.

Sources of information about the population's health and its utilization of parts of the system are more numerous and varied than ever before. For the elderly, the range of formal and informal services used, and the patterns of use, are more complex than is revealed by most data bases. The annual movement of a hypothetical 100,000 elderly persons through the health care system is schematically diagrammed. The interrelatedness of seemingly discrete components is demonstrated; periodic review of such movement can contribute to judicious and efficient planning of services and their use.

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PubMed1978

Use of out-of-plan services by Medicare members of HIP.

Use of out-of-plan services in 1972 by Medicare members of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York (HIP) is examined in terms of the demographic and enrollment characteristics of out-of-plan users, types of services received outside the plan, and the relationship of out-of-plan to in-plan use. Users of services outside the plan tended to be more seriously ill and more frequently hospitalized than those receiving all of their services within the plan. The costs to the SSA of providing medical care to HIP enrollees are compared with analogous costs for non-HIP beneficiaries, and the implications for the organization and financing of health services for the aged are discussed.

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PubMed1976

14. The patient classification for long-term care developed by four research groups in the United States.

Delineation of long-term care problems and measurement of the effectiveness of efforts to deal with them requires a reliable method of describing observations made in the field. Recognizing this need, four groups of investigators have collaborated to produce the Patient Classification for Long-Term Care. Criteria for design of the Classification and its uses are described with specific reference to monitoring the quality of care, to policy making for long-term care, to research, and to education and training. Areas requiring further work are adaptation to care in noninstitutional settings and to children with long-term problems, and development of detailed psychosocial descriptors. Practical application of a classification scheme should not, however, wait upon the solution of all existing problems; a built-in mechanism of revision, analogous to that of the ICD, would make it possible to get on with the job of patient care, improving our methods of observation as we go, on the basis of experience.

Activities of Daily Living↗