Savings of 15 to 20 per cent could be implemented in the health services without reducing the standard of care, a conference on rehabilitation has heard.
The National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH), annual conference took place in Dublin today.
The event focused on how rehabilitation services can be managed, delivered and developed in Ireland against a backdrop of budget cuts and a challenging economic environment.
Professor of Health Policy and Management at Trinity College, Dr Charles Normand, said that savings of 15 to 20 per cent could be implemented through changes such as electronic prescribing, electronic patient records and investment in “the right buildings”.
In his paper Cost of care – can we manage more effectively?, he said looking at how services were provided could also reduce costs.
“Performance in the health services can be improved in a number of different ways, through new technologies and medical advancements, new ideas and understanding, and more efficient and effective services,” he said.
Prof Normand said new technologies could reduce treatment time, shorten hospital stays, speed up recovery time and improve patients’ experience.
Looking at how services are provided can also reduce costs - for example, e-prescribing, electronic patient records and investment in the right buildings, technology and skills can all contribute to more efficient health services in challenging times.”
Speakers from the NRH, Health Service Executive, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and John Hopkins University in the USA delivered papers focusing on the effective provision of rehabilitation services in Ireland.
Director of the national spinal injury rehabilitation programme at the NRH, Dr Éimear Smith, spoke about the impact of the changing demographics of disability.
“With people now living longer, the average age that a person will sustain a serious injury has also increased which naturally has an impact on the health services," Dr Smith said.
"In the past, an older person may have died from a serious injury or disease - now they are surviving longer with long-term rehabilitation and care. This is very positive but it does raise the question of where support can best be provided by the health services."
Dr Smith said one of the challenges many patients and their families faced was the lack of financial support available to patients with long-term injuries who wished to return home or go to a nursing home.
"Many nursing homes simply don’t have the facilities to cope with patients who have complex requirements.
"So what happens is that many of these patients are discharged from rehabilitation only to return back to the acute hospital - where they started their journey - to wait for nursing home care."
Dr Smith said that unless there was a system in place where nursing homes were participating in the state support scheme and forced to take a certain number of complex patients, “then this problem won’t get any easier”.
Adventure athlete Mark Pollock, who was paralysed after a fall last year and is a former patient of the NRH, addressed the 200 delegates to outline his positive perspective on rehabilitation.
Despite losing his eyesight at the age of 22, Mr Pollock has spent the last decade competing and exploring in such inhospitable environments as South Pole, Gobi Desert and the Syrian African Rift Valley.
He is currently receiving treatment at the NRH due to a fall which left him paralysed from the waist down.
“After my fall last year I wrote about the tension between accepting the reality that I might be paralysed, and accepting the facts of my new circumstances, versus keeping hope alive, that there was something after paralysis and the possibility of a cure. It’s a difficult twin track but the future is hope,” Mr Pollock said.
The NRH, which develops and delivers specialist medical rehabilitation services, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
It has cared for over 35,000 inpatients and over 200,000 outpatients at its hospital in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.