Media Statement From Amedisys on IOM Report on the Future of Nursing

BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Amedisys, the largest home health care and hospice company in the U.S., applauded the Institute of Medicine's recommendations which came out this week in the report, "The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health," which called for significant changes in the roles, responsibilities and education of nurses.

"Nurses are on the front lines of patient care every day and are absolutely essential to ensure high quality care is delivered," said Michael Fleming, MD, Chief Medical Officer for Amedisys. "We have more than 5,500 nurses providing care to our patients throughout the country and have long recognized their involvement in the continuum of care, from health promotion, to disease prevention, to coordination of care, to cure, and to palliative care when a cure isn't possible."

Amedisys has been a strong advocate for the role of nurses in health care and has been an innovator in advancing care through its disease management and care transitions programs. Dr. Fleming said they were particularly pleased to see the following recommendations in the report:

• Nurses should attain requisite competencies in the area of geriatrics. Amedisys believes this is especially important as the population continues to age and there is an increasing need to provide customized, high quality care, in the patient's home.
• Health care organizations should support and help nurses in taking the lead in developing and adopting innovative, patient-centered care models.
• Private and public funders should collaborate to advance research on models of care and innovative solutions, including technology that will enable nurses to contribute to improved health and health care.
• The role of nursing in palliative care should be enhanced including support of nursing education and research that advances the palliative care model and the use of palliative care as a framework when addressing the needs of the chronically ill population.

"We look forward to working with policymakers, government leaders, health care researchers and others in the health care field to make this blueprint a reality," Fleming added.

About Amedisys:

Amedisys, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMED) is the nation's leading health care company focused on bringing home the continuum of care. Each day Amedisys delivers personalized health care services to more than 35,000 individual patients and their families, in the comfort of patients' homes. Amedisys has two divisions, home health care and hospice, and employs more than 16,000 skilled clinicians across the country. The Company's state-of-the-art advanced chronic care management programs and leading-edge technology enables it to deliver quality care based upon the latest evidence-based best practices. Amedisys is a recognized innovator, being the first in the industry to equip its clinicians with point-of-care laptop technology and referring physicians with an internet portal that enables real-time coordination of patient care seamlessly. Amedisys also has the industry's first-ever nationwide Care Transitions program. Amedisys Care Transitions is designed to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions through patient and caregiver health coaching and care coordination, which starts in the hospital and continues throughout completion of the patient's home health plan of care. For more information about the Company, please visit: www.amedisys.com.

SOURCE Amedisys