President Franklin D Roosevelt is the inspiration for all who strive to overcome challenges. Roosevelt island was so named to reflect a commitment to an integrated community where the disabled move freely, live independently and develop to their fullest potential.
The FDR Hope Memorial will educate future generations about FDR and about Roosevelt Island, a vital community of “enabled” residents.

Metropolitan Jewish Health Care System, Brooklyn, NY October, 2008
Medical Administrators Conference, Washington, DC, June, 2009
Obama Transition Committe Health Care Forum, Roosevelt Island, December, 2008

Click here to sponsor Dr.Resnick’s October fundraising bicycle ride.

Nicholas D. Kristof’s column extolling the virtues of the Veterans Affairs health care system (”Health Care That Works,” Sept. 3) is right on target. But he doesn’t mention another way the V.A. system has found to provide more and better care to its patients and save lots of money at the same time — house calls.

All across the United States, thousands of chronically ill veterans have been getting house calls from doctors and nurses through the V.A.’s Home-Based Primary Care program. It is far and away the system’s most popular program. And it saves a bundle of money.

A V.A. analysis in 2002 showed that veterans who got house calls spent 62 percent less time in hospitals and 88 percent less time in nursing homes and cost the system 24 percent less than their colleagues seen in offices.

The sickest 10 percent of Medicare enrollees consume about two-thirds of its budget. Encouraging house calls to that population could cut Medicare costs substantially and provide money to cover the country’s uninsured.

The Independence at Home Act is a provision in the House’s health care reform package that would accomplish just that. The act encourages doctors to take on the care of a home-bound population by allowing them to share in the savings they engender. This is real health care reform — a change in the health care system, not simply in its financing.

Jack Resnick
New York, Sept. 3, 2009

The writer, an internist, provides house calls to 50 homebound elderly and disabled people

The following link takes you to the Times Letters Column of 9/9/2009

To the Editor:

Re ”Napping During Hospital Shifts” (editorial, Dec. 9):

Further shortening hospital doctors’ workweeks will only increase the mistakes patients endure. The all-too-frequent errors my patients encounter when hospitalized are almost always caused by doctors who don’t know them well enough, not by doctors who are too sleepy.

My conversations about patients with hospital staff members almost always begin with, ”I don’t know this patient well — I’m just covering.” This problem began with the decrease in residents’ workweeks in the 1980s. It will only get worse with yet another increase in the number of ”handoffs” to which each patient is subjected.

Every patient should have a doctor who is in charge throughout the entire hospital stay. Internet technology should make that resident available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, through real-time audiovisual links — even if the doctor is at another hospital, at home or vacationing in the Poconos.

Error rates would drop, the quality of care would improve and doctors in training could experience the emotional rewards of actually shepherding someone through an illness. And the length of the on-site workweek could be reduced.

Jack Resnick
New York, Dec. 9, 2008

The writer is an internist.

Follow this link to the Letters Column in the Times