What is Home Health Care?
Many times, after a hospital stay, our loved ones are not quite back to normal and do not have the full ability to care for themselves on their own. Hospitals and physicians may not be aware of the socio-economic factors that might affect the patient’s home, overall health, and their ability to recover.
Bridges’ home health services observe and assist in the patient’s home environment with a goal of recovery, avoiding hospital readmissions, and improving the patient’s overall quality of life. What patient or family member would make the choice to be cared for in a nursing home or hospital over the comforts and familiarity of receiving care in their own home, or wherever they call home?
Home health helps older adults live independently for as long as possible, even with an illness or injury. Home health can allow a COVID 19 patient to return home from the hospital for what may be a long recovery, and under the care and supervision of highly skilled health professionals.
Home health may include occupational and physical therapy, speech therapy, and skilled nursing. It may involve helping older adults with activities of daily living, such as bathing, dressing, and eating. It can also include assistance with cooking, cleaning, other housekeeping, and monitoring one’s medication regimen.
Bridges Home Health Services
01. Medication reconciliation
Our highly skilled nurses can monitor the patient to ensure they are taking everything the doctor ordered, they can monitor filled and unfilled prescriptions and also ensure there are no overdoses or issues with controlled substances with the ongoing opioid crisis.
02. Falls assessments in a patient's home
Falls represent a major risk and our nurses and therapists can do an in-home assessment to mitigate this risk and if necessary allocate occupational or physical therapies in the home.
03. Chronic disease monitoring remotely
Our nurses can monitor cardiac, respiratory, diabetes, and hypertension in the home improving the outcomes for these patients and reducing their hospital and emergency admissions.
04. Mental health issues
Many times patients feel isolated and lonely and this can lead to a serious mental health crisis, our home health agency offers specialty licensed MSW’s to come out to the patient's home and address these issues. This service is unique to Bridges and is helpful during the COVID19 pandemic and the mandatory isolation and stay at home orders.
05. Nutritional care and food services
While providing in-home care for our patients, our nutritionist is able to identify issues in nutritional plans of care and can coordinate services with our patients' social workers, like meals on wheels.
06. Patient education and physician connectivity
Keeping our patients connected to their physicians and ensuring their health is our number one priority, communication is key and we ensure that we are here to make this happen successfully.