"More doctors are becoming 'nursing home specialists'" - EurekAlert!. 11/28/2017
A new study by Kira Ryskina, Daniel Polsky, and Rachel Werner at the University of Pennsylvania, finds the number of US doctors and advance practitioners who focus on nursing home care rose by more than a third between 2012 and 2015. The authors say this trend has the potential to change health care delivery, especially to older patients. “On one hand, clinicians who practice in the nursing home exclusively could improve patient outcomes and reduce costs by leveraging expertise in nursing home processes of care, for example. But, concentrating patient care among nursing home specialists could also mean that patients are no longer seen by their primary care providers, who traditionally follow patients for years and across care settings,” Ryskina says.