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The AHA today on Capitol Hill convened a panel of post-acute care leaders to brief lawmakers and their staff about the value these facilities provide to patients and communities.
 
Robert McCall, senior vice president of Partners/Spaulding Rehabilitation Network in Massachusetts; Jim Prister, president and CEO of RML Health Providers in Illinois; Michael Spigel, president and chief operating officer of Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Florida; and Karen Doyle, R.N., at University of Maryland Medical Center; shared the critical role their organizations play in the continuum of care, as well as the challenges their organizations face.
 
McCall emphasized the importance of partnerships with acute care providers and other hospitals and leveraging “telehealth services to do consultations and to share information, and put great minds on both sides of the health care system together to serve the patients’ best interests.”
 
In addition, Prister discussed the extensive, ongoing efforts by Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to drive reform in post-acute care. He highlighted the need for a stable environment for providers to implement the existing reform agenda, then allow the evaluation of the impact of these reforms to guide further improvements.
 
As part of the briefing, the AHA today also released new fact sheets about post-acute care and inpatient rehabilitation facilities.