‘Where Can I Recover?’ NYU Langone Health Helps Patients Heal Beyond Hospital Care

Summary: Imagine you are ready to leave the hospital, but you don't have a safe home to heal in. For many patients in New York City, this means either going to a crowded shelter or staying in a hospital bed they no longer need. Sending recovering patients to shelters often causes them to get sick again and return to the emergency room.

To fix this, NYU Langone Health teamed up with a group called Comunilife to create a "medical respite" program. Instead of a shelter, patients get a private or shared room with a bathroom to safely recover. While there, they get help with medical needs like wound care, as well as help finding permanent apartments and getting Social Security cards. For patients like 58-year-old Keith, who just wants to heal from heart failure and make people laugh, it is a lifesaver. The program is working well, with 62 percent of patients finding long-term housing after an average stay of 48 days. It frees up hospital beds for sick people and gives recovering patients a real chance to rebuild their lives.

For more details, see rssapp-nyulangone-org-news at nyulangone.org/news/where-can-i-recover-nyu-langone-health-helps-patients-heal-beyond-hospital-care (opens in new tab)