In an Allina ER, too many familiar faces

[Star Tribune, March 25, 2011] At Owatonna Hospital, some of the faces in the emergency room were becoming a little too familiar.

The same patients kept coming back over and over again, often with vague complaints about pain or migraines. One patient returned, on average, once a week for a year.

That's when social worker Liz Keck was hired to work with those frequent visitors, to see if there was a better way to help them.

The result was a program called "In-Reach," which helped save more than $282,000 in one year by reducing needless ER visits.