PROGRAM(Coeur d'Alene Press, 2006)
Panhandle Home Health nurses plan a patient's home care.
Panhandle Home Health Fills the Need
COEUR d’ALENE—The people Michelle Reiss nurses are her neighbors. They may live 20 miles away from her home, but they’re still her neighbors. They shop in the same stores, attend the same community parades and endure the same winter snowstorms as Reiss. And that’s important to this Panhandle Health District nurse who often takes her services into people’s homes.
“We’re local and very much a part of life here,” Reiss says.
Reiss is a nursing supervisor in the Health District’s Home Health Division. Home Health provides professional nursing services, physical, speech and occupational therapy, social work and home health aides to help patients in their homes. Caregivers are state-licensed.
PHD’s Home Health Division celebrates 40 years of service this year, which makes it the longest serving and most experienced home health program in the five northern counties. It’s also non-profit, a rarity in the burgeoning home health field. In the five northern counties, the only non-profit, Medicare-certified home health services offered are through Panhandle Home Health and Bonner General Hospital.
``We’re seeing an increase in the need for Home Health services because of the growing senior population in our area,’’ says Mary DeTienne, PHD’s Home Health Division director and a member of the National Association of Home Care board.
Panhandle Home Health extends care to people of any age in the five northern counties when they’re referred for home health services by their doctor, hospital or the people who discharge them from other health care facilities. It takes its care to northern Idaho’s cities as well as its remote hideaways.
Changes in the healthcare system have led to shorter hospital stays than in the past. Many people return home from the hospital needing skilled services such as wound care or home IV therapy. Some people need help learning how to adjust their lives to a newly diagnosed condition like diabetes. Others need help learning to walk or talk again after a stroke.
“Family members and, in some cases, outside caregivers are important members of the Home Health team because they are taught to assist with care when we’re not there,” DeTienne says. “The Home Health staff is there to assess the clients’ needs, monitor their condition, teach about medications and answer their questions.”
Such practices are why Panhandle Home Health won national recognition from Avatar International, a consulting, service and research firm that surveys customer satisfaction in health care.
In 2005, Avatar surveyed several Panhandle Home Health patients. Surveys ask about quality of patient care, patient rights, the education they receive from caregivers, billing, accessibility of care, outcomes and more.
The 213 patients who responded gave Panhandle Home Health an overall score of 94 percent. Patients gave the physical therapists that work with Home Health a perfect rating. The survey is voluntary, but DeTienne never hesitated about participating.
“We want to know that we make a difference in the home care needs of our patients,” she says.
For the same reason, Panhandle Home Health decided to participate last year in a national study to reduce the number of home health patients who return to the hospital for acute care.
Qualis Health, a private and non-profit healthcare quality improvement organization, conducted the three-month study. Panhandle Home Health was one of 113 home health service providers in 11 states to participate.
Nationally, nearly a third of patients in home health end up returning to the hospital for any number of reasons. Their health histories often complicate simple home health needs. For example, wound care is straight forward until a patient’s diabetes and other problems are factored in.
Panhandle Home Health nurses began assessing what factors beyond the immediate problem might put patients back in the hospital. Then they created a care plan that considered all the risks.
“We’ve seen changes,” says Joyce Bergen, quality improvement coordinator for Panhandle Home Health. “We were able to determine most patients’ risk of readmission to the hospital within the first two weeks.”
According to Medicare.gov, a Medicare-operated Website that offers the public quality information on various health care services, 24 percent of Panhandle Home Health patients return to the hospital. Idaho’s state average is 25 percent and the national average is 28 percent.
“We’re below the national average,” Bergen says. “The risk assessment really does help.”
Medicare has a big interest in home health. The majority of home health clients are among the senior population. Eighty percent of Panhandle Home Health’s clients are on Medicare, which pays for the services if they’re doctor-ordered, the patient is homebound and the care is medically necessary. Medicare offers online—www.medicare.gov--quality reports, an explanation of patient rights and guidelines on how to choose a home health provider.
DeTienne and Reiss encourage potential clients to study Medicare’s information. Improvement of clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction are agency priorities.
“When you go into their homes and enter their world, talk to them about their lives, it’s hard not get involved,” Reiss says, remembering with a grin one patient whose husband fainted at the sight of her spouses’ surgical wound. “Home Health nurses and therapists make a difference. We want what’s best for the client.”
For information on Panhandle Home Health, call 415-5160. To compare home health services offered throughout northern Idaho, go to www.medicare.gov and select the Home Health Compare option.