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Home Health | Skilled Home Care | Nursing Services

Nursing Services

 

 

Working

 

Toward

 

Independence

 

Patients are in Panhandle Health District's Home Health program to work toward independence, which typically takes time. PHD's highly skilled nurses promote patient independence through weeks and sometimes months of instruction. They also provide specific doctor-ordered medical services and stay in close contact with the doctor to report any changes in a patient's condition that would preclude a return to independence.

Patients are referred to PHD's Home Health program by doctors. A nurse starts off every new patient with an in-depth assessment that sometimes uncovers patient needs of which the doctor is unaware. Nurses share their findings and a suggested plan of care with their patient's doctor. This practice leads to good patient results, according to Medicare.

  • 71 percent of Panhandle Home Health patients stay home after home health care ends. The national average is 68 percent.
  • 87 percent of Panhandle Home Health patients' wounds improve or heal compared to the national average of 79 percent.
  • 23 percent of Panhandle Home Health patients return to the hospital compared to the national average of 29 percent.

 

Since there's a Plan of Care, what does the Home Health nursing staff teach?

The Home Health staff teaches patients to care for themselves, either on their own or with the help of family or friends. Home Health nurses teach:

  • How to give IV therapy, including how to
    • maintain a PICC line, a special IV line used in the home setting.
    • flush a line.
  • How to live with diabetes, including how to
    • use a glucometer.
    • take insulin.
  • How to care for wounds, including how to
    • change dressings.
    • recognize the signs and symptoms of infection.
  • How to manage medications, including
    • what the patient's medications are,
    • when to take them and
    • how to organize them in Medi-sets.
  • How chronic patients can use Telemonitors, which
    • enable them to take their own vital signs and transmit the results to PHD.
    • alert doctors of trends in the patient's condition.

 

Who does the Home Health nursing staff teach?

  • Patients
  • Family
  • Caregivers

 

What are the doctor-ordered medical services nurses provide?

Panhandle Home Health nurses provide some of the short-term medical services that are necessary for the patient to start working toward independence. For example, nurses will:

  • change catheters but will instruct family how to irrigate them.
  • perform vacuum-assisted therapy on wounds to speed healing.
  • monitor all wounds to assess healing and intervene if healing stops or other complications arise.
  • change IV therapy dressings.
  • draw blood for lab work or collect urine for a urinalysis when they're needed in conjunction with other skilled nursing or therapy skills.

 

Do the nurses help me bathe?

Panhandle Home Health aides help patients bathe under a doctor's order and in conjunction with skilled nursing services. As in all Panhandle Home Health services, the goal is to help the patient gain independence, in this case eventually to return to self-bathing.

 

Here are some links to valuable information on Home Health:

 



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