This service involves the multidisciplinary team at Texas Medical Center hospitals, including The Methodist Hospital and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Additionally, physicians and nurse practitioners from GMA provide medical oversight to several long-term care facilities near the Texas Medical Center. The future of veteran care in the United States is inextricably bound to care of the geriatric patient. Through the Geriatrics and Extended Care Service at the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center, we offer a continuum of care to older veterans by using in-house and contract services as needed. As a primary teaching hospital for Baylor and other Texas Medical Center institutions, the programs described below also are serve as training sites for geriatric fellows and students of medicine, nursing, social work, pharmacy, and dietetics.
Service is available for up to one year.
The HBPC program also coordinates caregiver support groups and senior companion services for our older veterans. In-patient care accommodates those older veterans who require higher levels of medical attention. The Intermediate Care Unit serves patients who no longer require acute care, but who need additional time for observation and continuing therapy prior to returning home. Targeted older patients are evaluated and treated for functional, medical, and psychosocial programs that impede their reaching the highest level of functioning in the least restrictive environment. Transitional Care Units provide extended care for patients who can benefit from intensive rehabilitation, skin care or other special nursing care not possible through our HBPC program or contract program with community nursing homes.