Sant Joan UHD increases its workforce with the addition of a nurse and reinforces the home care.

-The unit made about 11,000 visits to about 2,000 patients in their homes last year

– doubled the number of palliative, not cancer patients benefiting from this service

San Juan, March of 2013– unit of hospital stay home (UHD) of the Department of health Alicante – Sant Joan d ’ of Alicante has one professional in his team, the nurse Lola Díaz, which will allow an increase in the activity, as well as to offer a better quality of care to patients in this area who need home health care assistance.

Especially, this template is to assume an important reinforcement to the towns of Busot, Aguas de Busot, Torremanzanas, Tibi and Xixona, the last area of the Department that began to assume the UHD nearly a year ago. The current coverage area is over 220,000 people.

In this way, unit passes to be formed today by 13 health professionals (four physicians, a nurse, seven nurses and a Nursing Assistant Coordinator). Also, has a psychologist of the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC) which offers psychological support to patients who need it.

Along with the increase in staff, the strengthening of the unit is marked by the high number of home visits conducted last year, a total of 10.728, and 1,949 patients were treated. Of these, almost 50% were not known previously by the unit, so there was a significant increase in new patients, which gives an account of the expansion of the unit. The average of these patients in the UHD stay was 9 days.

Increase in referrals from emergency and primary care

Another significant fact is that about 150 patients who came to the emergency room last year were not admitted in the hospital and were referred to this unit. In this sense, the rate of the UHD patients who come from emergency room has increased progressively until last year by 10%, compared with 7% in 2011. These referral figures reflect the consolidation of the coordination between the UHD and emergency service, which aims to offer patients an alternative to hospitalization, with the same quality of care. In turn, supposed to free up space for other income at the Centre Hospitalier ”, stressed the head of the UHD, Pablo Tordera.

Last year was also achieved an important goal as is the strengthen the interaction and communication between the UHD and the health centres in the Department, which resulted in an increase in the rate of patients from primary care, 5% in 2011 to 7%.

the new information of the UHD conversing with a partner before making an exit at home.

In terms of the profile of the patients, 53% were palliative in nature (49% in 2011), which consolidates our unity as one of the most paliativistas ” throughout the region, with the clinical and emotional effort that involves care for these patients at the end of life and do it in their family environment of ”, designates Tordera.

As important within the context of palliative patients, it stands out that it has doubled the number of non-oncologic palliative patients who benefit from this service, reaching 17% of the total number of patients at the unit in 2012. Know that there are more non-oncologic palliative cancer patients in our midst, but there has always been difficulty in labeling them as such when it comes mostly from pluripatológicos sick, taken by different specialists. This increase in non-cancer palliative patients implies that there is a better referral to the unit by professionals and, therefore, a more efficient use of health care resources ”.