More hospitals are now making chiropractic care available to
patients. One such program was reported in the March 2003 issue of the
magazine, Chiropractic Economics. In that article it is reported that Monroe
Community Hospital, a teaching nursing home in New York, has teamed up with
New York Chiropractic College to establish a chiropractic clinic to serve
individuals with a host of chronic disabilities. The target patients for
this are frail nursing home residents who traditionally could not receive
chiropractic services.
The article notes that this collaboration allows patients to
experience relief of their spinal pain through chiropractic care. Monroe
Community Hospital and New York Chiropractic College have since decided to
commit additional time for patient visits in the consultative clinic, and
the program has spawned related research projects. Chiropractic services at
the hospital are now offered three days per week under the direction of a
NYCC professor.
The program was initiated after Dr. J. Donald Dishman, a
New York Chiropractic College clinician and researcher, introduced the pilot
program in 2002 that demonstrated chiropractic's efficacy in treating
chronically ill patients.