Report: Use District tobacco settlement money to improve health care clinics, record systems

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The District should spend $135 million remaining from its tobacco settlement to renovate clinics and update electronic medical record systems, says a report released Thursday by an independent research firm.

The D.C. Council will hold a hearing Monday to formally record the exhaustive yearlong study it commissioned from the Rand Corporation and receive citizen testimony. The results of this deliberation will mark “the biggest health care expansion in the history of the city,” said Councilman and Health Committee Chairman David Catania, independent-at large.

“The report is pretty thorough in the challenges that we face,” Catania told The Examiner. “It’s essentially a very extensive to-do list that needs to be managed and prioritized.”

The study reported pressing problems, including patients in critical condition being transported to less-prepared facilities, hospitals averaging 36 percent more patients than they have the capacity for and confusion among residents about care options. Because patients often visit the emergency room with nonemergency needs, local ER visits take twice the national average at 90 minutes.

The report also recommends updating or creating health centers to reach patients in the most

destitute parts of D.C., lengthening hours of health care facilities,

buying equipment, and increasing specialty care rather than constructing a new health complex, which the council considered last June. 

Catania said he expects the council will quickly decide how to spend the funds, and have “the money headed out the door” in about four months.

Other suggestions include creating a toll-free information phone line, improving communication between Emergency Medical Service and hospitals, and remodeling patient rooms.

Rand interviewed local residents, doctors, hospital and clinic staff and analyzed emergency medical services data to produce the study.

“Some people we talked to said it was like being a caller trying to get through on a radio show to get an appointment,” said Nicole Lurie, one of the study’s eight authors.