Strange But True Marriages

If my grandfather Henry were around today, I’m pretty sure he would shake his head in disbelief that Cal Berkeley and Stanford joined the ACC football league – that’s the Atlantic Coast Conference, which last I checked isn’t near the Pacific.  I remember watching the famous Cal-Stanford college game with gramps in 1982 when Cal lateralled 5 times through the Stanford defense and its marching band on way to the shocking last second victory.  Cal’s runner knocked over Stanford trombone player Gary Tyrrell in the endzone, which incidentally is partly why our oldest Jack didn’t join his college marching band - the other reason is, candidly, about uncertainty about what the college experience is supposed to be. Having the two California schools join the ACC is like a western medical group or a hospital joining a health system out east, or when hospitals start moving their locations into people homes – wait, this is actually happening. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if by 2035 nearly every hospital system in the US had a hospital-at-home service offering – they may need to to survive and transform. Hospitals and home health may be at two ends of the spectrum – opposite points in the continuum – but just like the college football realignment, they need each other. “I’m pretty convinced this has to work,” says Patty Joerns, MD. “Yeah I worry about avoidable mortality, the need for an ambulance back to the hospital during a cardiac event but hospital systems have to be open to change and staff the heart and lung patients adequately and set up very good screening systems to head off infection.” As we all get older the idea of better at home care makes sense and seems welcome and probably necessary. The idea of Stanford’s football team and marching band flying cross country in November to compete against ACC rivals like Miami or Florida State, maybe not…