Dr. Jonathan Fine is organizing some of his retired colleagues in a new venture called Bedside Advocates to provide one-on-one support and comfort to people in hospitals, an educated ombudsman as it were.
From retired caregivers, a spoonful of compassion.
The volunteers with Bedside Advocates will not practice medicine. Instead, they aim to provide comfort and compassion while helping fragile and elderly patients navigate the increasingly complex medical system by accompanying them to the doctor's office, the hospital, and the nursing home. They hope to help patients get better care by empowering them to ask questions, follow their medication regimes, and get prompt attention to problems.
And most of all, they plan to be there when no one else is, providing relief for tired caregivers and support for patients without families, according to Dr. Jonathan Fine, who is leading the effort.
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Fine, 75, of Cambridge, envisions a cadre of retired doctors, nurses, physician's assistants, and trained lay people who would provide one-on-one support to thousands of patients, seeking to humanize healthcare while reducing medical errors, complications, and hospitalizations. He has already recruited about 20 doctors and secured some start-up funding from the Legislature, and he plans to launch the program in a pilot phase this spring. The organization expects to find needy patients through practicing doctors, senior centers, and people who call asking for help.
Said one man whom Dr. Fine helped deal with a "litany of specialists".
It's like having your own attorney in the court of medicine. A man like Jonathan, the US needs millions like him."
If it works, it could be a national model. It's how I envision solving the health care crisis of boomers getting older - boomers helping each other.