Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
History
Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
Medicine, Military; Military hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans -- Medical care -- United States
In connection with the professional department proper, again the
attainment of the most satisfactory results from the standpoint, both of
economy and efficiency, is dependent upon the capacity and co-operation
of the responsible personnel. There has been much discussion in regard
to the number of professional personnel doctors, nurses, attendants,
etc., and on this subject there has been apparently wide differences of
opinion. However, these differences have been based upon differences of
viewpoints of what the actual conditions to be met were.
A definite agreement has been reached in regard to the required
personnel, nurses, doctors, attendants, social service, workers,
etc., to each two hundred patients in a hospital caring for all
acute patients, whether they be major surgical, acute active
neuro-psychiatric, active tuberculosis, or other type of acute
condition requiring active, constructive treatment.
As a matter of fact, however, we all know that in none of our Veterans’
Hospitals, especially the larger ones of 500 to 1000 or more beds, are
all the patients or even a majority of them represented by this type of
patients, on the contrary we have a large group of convalescent patients
who require professionally very much less attention from the standpoint
of active constructive treatment, dietetic attention, etc., and hence
require vastly less personnel, and the expense of their maintenance in
the hospital will be very greatly reduced from that of the acute type.
Again, we have another group which represents the semi-domiciliary type,
many of whom require very slight constructive treatment, and yet they
belong to a type of patients who are capable of being finally
rehabilitated and restored to an earning status in life. This group
requires still less care than the former, and naturally less personnel
and proportionately less per capita cost to the institution caring for
them. Lastly, we pass to a purely domiciliary group who are to a large
measure permanently disabled and are, therefore, many of them, to be
permanent charges oh the Veterans’ Hospitals. The great majority of the
latter group will require little or no special treatment, but will
require only general care and maintenance. In this group we are dealing
with a type who will represent the minimum per capita cost.
As time goes on we shall realize, especially in our larger hospitals,
that the above condition will exist to a larger and larger measure and
the necessity of a very close checking system and a very careful
classification of the patients along the lines indicated above will be a
matter of the very highest importance.
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