Northwestern Memorial Healthcare

Programs: It is the policy of palos community hospital to provide quality medical health care to all persons regardless of race, creed, sex, national origin, handicap, age, or ability to pay. The hospital recognizes that not all individuals possess the ability or means to purchase essential medical services and further, that our mission is to serve our community with respect to providing healthcare services and healthcare education. Therefore, in keeping with the hospital's commitment to serve all members of the community, charity and/or subsidized care will be considered where the need and/or inability to pay are identified.

palos community hospital provides a continuum of cardiovascular services - from diagnosis and treatment through recovery and rehabilitation - to ensure that our patients receive the care they need close to home. Prior to the start of the program in 2005, palos transferred patients from the local community to other hospitals. Within 3 years, palos ranked 14th in illinois for heart volume. This community need has grown as can be seen with continued increases in volume since the program began. To help patients stay healthy, palos heart failure and copd clinic has evolved into the palos health heart and lung wellness clinic adding asthma to the condition that that are treated. While admitted to the hospital, nurses teach patients about their condition to help them better understand living with chronic illness. In the clinic, an advanced practice nurse or a respiratory therapist, provides one-on-one, disease specific education including a focused physical assessment and treatments or medications at the time of the visit. The clinic staff focuses on helping patients manage their health to avoid readmission. The newly constructed electrophysiology lab at palos provides the cardiologists with advanced technology to treat complex heart dysrhythmias. Palos now provides our community with a comprehensive state of the art approach to prevention, diagnosing, treating and managing heart disease. Palos recently earned a blue distinction center+ designation for cardiac care.

care delivered by palos community hospital extends beyond the four walls of the hospital building through care coordination efforts including home health, private duty, and hospice, the home delivered meal program and lifeline. A multidisciplinary team comprised of physicians, nurses, ancillary professionals, and information technology specialists developed, revised and implemented systems and process to provide a seamless continuum of care for our patients both inside and outside of the hospital. This collaborative effort focuses on promoting wellness and preventing admission and readmission. Coordination of care through the nurse navigators and care coordinators support the patients, families and physicians by directing them to the appropriate resources to help to provide high quality care for the patients. Palos continues to foster clinical affiliations bringing specialty/tertiary care to the community. Through our clinical affiliation with loyola medicine, cancer treatment services with academic level specialists have been established in the community at the palos south campus. This enables local residents access to tertiary level services without leaving the community and is an example of organizations collaborating intended to bring the patients the right care at the right place. In addition, palos initiated a telestroke program with loyola allowing for real time clinical evaluation by loyola specialists of patients with stroke symptoms in palos hospital or the emergency department and facilitating expedited treatment, intervention or transfer of these patients to enhance outcomes. This collaboration and a common electronic medical record platform, epic, has also allowed for hipaa compliant exchange of patient information between institutions facilitating continuity of care. During the past year, palos has instituted a number of collaborative efforts with medical staff members focused on the promotion of population based health including the establishment of a heart failure clinic, participation in the medicare shared savings program for specific bundles, the development of a palliative care service and other post-acute care efforts focused on decreased readmissions and enhanced care coordination. Palos' home health, private duty and hospice services provide quality personal care and support to patients in their homes, nursing homes or hospitals. The home health staff assists the chronically ill, persons with functional impairments, those needing specialized skilled care at home, those recovering from a hospital stay and the terminally ill. In 2017, home health staff from palos made more than 89,000 home care visits, more than 22,000 hospice visits and provided nearly 37,000 hours of private duty nursing assistance. Palos also assists the homebound and elderly in the community with two special programs, home delivered meals and lifeline. Home delivered meals are provided to people who are homebound, live alone and are unable to prepare their own meals. The program offers recipients two meals a day which are planned by hospital dietitians, prepared in the hospital kitchen and delivered by palos volunteers five days a week. The meals are available at a discounted rate by the hospital. The home delivered meals program has an average of 50 recipients living in palos heights, palos hills, palos park, orland park and orland hills. To further support homebound and elderly area residents, palos offers lifeline, a medical alert system. The device, installed in participants' homes, can help detect falls and provide a simplified means to signal for assistance from a loved one or emergency services if needed. Palos can support up to 170 participants at a time.