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Show Hospital Now Can Offer Extended Care Hospital Administrator Administrat-or J. Kay Hawks this week discussed a new HEW pilot project which involves allowing nursing nurs-ing home patients the benefits of extended care in a hospital, such as Allen Memorial. Mr. Hawks pointed out that the project has been set up for three years, during which time hospitals hos-pitals in Utah will be allowed al-lowed to keep nursing home patients in an intensive in-tensive care facility. At this time, Mr. Hawks said, there are 12 hospitals hos-pitals in the state which are approved for this new project and seven others are in the process pro-cess of being cleared. "This," said Mr. Hawks, "is not related to the nursing home itself, but will be a sort of buffer zone between the nursing home and an acute care facility." He indicated that before this measure was approved, it was not possible to gain Medicare Medi-care benefits for patients pa-tients who required ex- tended care in a hospital. A meeting has been tentatively ten-tatively set up for this Friday between medical personnel to discuss to what effect this measure will affect Allen Memorial Memor-ial Hospital. Hawks stated that at this time, it appears that one or two persons might be eligible to be admitted admit-ted to the hospital under the program. Care under the project would cost less than half of the amount incurred in an acute care facility, he I said. |