Methodist Program Follows Patients to Skilled Nursing Facilities

After Norma Jean Krahmer was hospitalized for a fall this summer, she needed some additional care at a skilled nursing facility in Omaha.

She was in luck. Her primary care physician, Dr. John Lohrberg, was able to follow her there, like doctors routinely did in the past.

More than a decade ago, Lohrberg founded a Methodist Physicians Clinic program that extends bedside care for Methodist primary care patients once they’re discharged from the hospital and transferred to skilled facilities. Brookestone Meadows, where Krahmer went for skilled care, is among the six — seven by year’s end — Omaha facilities participating in the health system’s Skilled Nursing Facility Program. Another team operates in Council Bluffs.

Lohrberg, who retired at the end of September after 34 years as a family medicine physician, said the program began as a way to extend the care provided in the health system’s clinics, which follow what’s known as a medical home model, to skilled facilities.

Omaha World-Herald: Methodist Program Follows Patients to Skilled Nursing Facilities