What Does a Home Health Nurse Do?

Home health nurses are charged with carrying out the orders of a Doctor in a patients home. Their role is to help ensure patient recovery in the home when a patient is home bound. Patients receive exceptional care in the home, but should not substitute home health for regular, necessary Doctor's visits. In fact, Medicare requires a visit about every six months to continue home health care.
Doctors can order a home health nurse to treat many conditions and their symptoms, but these are a few of the most common:

Urinary Tract Infection • Arthritis • Diabetes • Cancer • Wound Care

 Lymphedema • Post-surgical Care • Osteoporosis • MRSA Infections
 Osteomyelitis • Cellulitis • Pneumonia • Endocarditis • Bacteremia • Fever of Unknown Origin

Fungal Infection • Thyroid Dysfunction • Refractory Osteoporosis

 Pituitary Dysfunction and Tumors • Diabetes • Adrenal Dysfunction and Tumors

Hypertension • Heart Failure • Atrial Fibrillation • COPD

 Cholesterol Management • Multiple Falls

To treat these, and other, medical issues a home health nurse can do many of the things that a nurse in a doctors office can do, with the exception of highly specialized treatments requiring  large equipment. These are a few examples of what home health nurses can do in a patent's home:

• Skilled assessment, evaluation and observation of:
• The signs and symptoms of complications and infections
• Response to medication and treatments
• Physical, mental & environmental limitations
• Lab draws 
• Catheter insertion & care
• Dressing changes and wound care
• Medication management
• Management of implanted pumps, ports and central lines
• Ostomy care
• Patient & family teaching for:
• Disease process & care management
• Risk Factor Reduction
• Diet & bowel regimen
• Infection control
• Medication administration & side effects
• Emergency procedures
• Skin care
• Bladder care
• Pain management

A Doctor can order additional skilled clinicians, like physical or occupational therapists, to compliment the care of a nurse and ensure that patients recover quickly and safely at home. Seniors benefit from hands-on, in-home care that enables them to follow their physician’s plan of care with the goal of full recovery in mind. 

If you have any questions about what else a home health nurse can do, go to http://www.millcreekhomehealth.com/ and contact us with your questions.

What is different about Millcreek?

     With over 100 Home Health Companies in the Salt Lake Area alone, it is important to demand the highest quality of Home Health and Hospice Care for your loved ones. These are just a few of the things we do at Millcreek to ensure that our patients get the best care possible.

Nursing Driven Care

    Millcreek is nursing driven so that your patients receive comprehensive care that addresses the many facets of any one diagnosis. Many Home Health companies use a nurse staffing service, which means that after working hours, phone calls are answered by an unfamiliar stranger. At Millcreek a staff nurse is available 24-7. All nurses who are on call participate in Case Conference and are familiar with each patient, so that if they receive a phone call at 3am, they can act and help the patient, rather then send them to the hospital or tell them to call back in the morning. Millcreek also has Hospice Certified and Certified Lymphedema Therapists so that we provide the highest quality of care possible.

Therapy

    All patient therapy is overseen by Rob Green, PT, Millcreek’s Director of Therapies. Additionally, Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists work hand in hand with our nursing team and Physicians to ensure the highest level of care. Millcreek also has a Physical Therapist who is a Certified Wound Specialist, who treats patients and hosts a bi-weekly wound conference.

Social Work

    Our Medical Social Worker, Heather Bittinger LCSW, is available to prepare advanced directives, long term planning and connect patients to community resources.

Proven Results

Most importantly, Millcreek has a proven track record of providing great care.  Millcreek ranks in the top 500 best home health agencies in the U.S. by OSC HomeCare, 1^st in Salt Lake for patient outcomes by Medicare’s Home Health Compare and in the 97^th percentile nationally for patient outcomes by Medicare’s Home Health Compare.

For more information visit http://www.millcreeehomehealth.com/

'Tis the Season to Care for the Heart!

Every holiday, in lieu of giving gifts to physicians, hospitals and nurses that we do business with, Millcreek makes a financial donation to a non-profit organization that serves seniors.

This holiday season we're supporting the American Heart Association.

We support their mission to research, educate, advocate for better health, improve patient care and reach populations at risk for heart failure & stroke.  We encourage you to support the great work that they do, too!
    

Heart failure is the leading cause of death among seniors, contributing to more than 300,000 deaths per year. Patients diagnosed with Heart Failure require specialized home care that takes into account the many risk factors that complicate and exacerbate their condition and co-morbidities. 

25% of Heart Failure Patients are re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge.

Thankfully, many of these hospitalizations are preventable with appropriate home health care. 55% of re-hospitalizations occur due to fluid overload. Angina, Heart Attack and Arrhythmia account for an additional 40%—compounding the need for close, on-going care and monitoring in the home after patients are discharged.

In response to a growing need among seniors, Millcreek uses a home care plan that anticipates risk factors and implements proactive care to prevent re-hospitalizations for heart failure patients. 

Millcreek's heart failure program is designed for patient success.

Each patient receives custom-tailored care, but until the patient stabilizes, Millcreek implements the following protocol to ensure patient success from the moment they are discharged from the hospital.

• All hospital discharge paperwork is sent to the patient’s Primary Care Physician and/or Cardiologist upon discharge.
• A Millcreek Case Manager facilitates a visit to a cardiologist or primary care physician within 2 weeks of discharge.
• Nursing orders are front loaded & include PRN visits, so that patients are seen frequently until they stabilize in the home environment.
• Daily vitals & weights are taken and reported if they are outside of Physician ordered parameters. If the patient does not have an accessible scale, Millcreek provides one at no cost.
• Physical & Occupational Therapy evaluations are ordered for home safety, energy conservation and home exercise plans.
• Standing orders for Medical Social Work are written when the patient lives alone or with an elderly caregiver.
• Patients receive a phone call on off visit days to check on them.
• Ongoing patient teaching about symptoms, emergency protocol, diet and exercise.

Our goal:

Reduce re-hospitalizations by providing quality care,

that allows patients recover safely in their homes.

For more information on Millcreek's Heart Failure program, contact us through our website www.millcreekhomehealth.com .

Employee Profile: Heather Bittinger, Medical Social Worker

Millcreek’s Medical Social Worker, Heather Bittinger, Licenced Clinical Social Worker, has more than 15 years of experience in the health care industry, in a variety of clinical settings. She directs Millcreek Home Health and Hospice’s social services and bereavement program and is a critical part of Millcreek’s patient outreach services. Ms. Bittinger holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Utah and is in the process of becoming a Certified Hospice and Palliative Social Worker.  In addition to all of her advanced training, Heather is a wonderfully compassionate person who has an uncanny ability to help families in crisis situations.

Medical Social Work is a vital element of senior patient care. Medical Social Workers provide psychosocial support to the elderly and families, helping them cope with acute, chronic and/or terminal illnesses.

 

Indications & Needs for MSW

Hospice Status Ÿ Crisis Intervention Ÿ Long Term Planning & Advance Directives

Unsafe Home Environment Ÿ Complex Family Dynamics Ÿ Brief Therapy

Veterans Benefits Ÿ Community Resource Referrals Ÿ Referrals Mental Health Services

Medication Assistance Ÿ Medicare Applications Ÿ Emergency Alert Buttons

For more information, go to http://www.millcreekhomehealth.com/.

Our Favorite Ways to Choose a Home Health Agency.

    At Millcreek, we firmly believe that seniors and their families should know about the resources available to them to help make decisions about their care. When patients and families have good information, they make better decisions and receive better care.

   Our favorite tool for researching home care options is Medicare's Medicare's Home Health Compare. Medicare requires that all Medicare-certified agencies report patient outcomes, which are tracked and compared against state and national averages. Patient outcomes help measure how successful a home health agency was in providing care. You can look at any Medicare-certified agency, in any state, and you can select multiple home health agencies and compare them side by side, to make sure that you get the best care possible.

   Your primary care physician's office can offer suggestions for home health agencies, too. We also encourage you to call the home health agencies that you are considering to get a feel for how they interact with patients and to clarify the services and benefits they can offer to you and your family.

Remember, you and your family have the right to choose who provides your care.

    Millcreek is proud of the high quality of care we've been able to provide to our patients. We know that when you put high quality care first, patients benefit.  Here are Millcreek Home Health and Hospice's outcomes from  Home Health Compare:

Quality Measure	Millcreek Home Health	Utah Average	National Average
Managing Activities of Daily Living
How often patients got better at walking or moving around.	61%	51%	47%
How often patients got better at getting in and out of bed.	68%	60%	54%
How often patients got bet at bathing.	82%	70%	65%
Managing Pain and Treating Symptoms
How often the home health team checked for pain.	100%	97%	96%
How often the home health team treated their patients' pain.	99%	91%	94%
How often patients had less pain when moving around.	72%	61%	64%
Treating Wounds and Preventing Pressure Sores
How often patient's wounds improved or healed after an operation.	83%	77%	80%
How often the home health team checked patients for the risk of developing pressure sores.	96%	95%	95%
How often the home health team included treatments to prevent pressure sores in the plan of care.	99%	88%	88%
How often the home health team took doctor-ordered action to prevent pressure sores.	99%	85%	86%
Preventing Harm
How often the home health team began their patients' care in a timely manner.	89%	90%	86%
How often the home health team taught patients (or their family caregivers) about their drugs.	91%	76%	83%
How often patients got better at taking drugs correctly by mouth.	48%	46%	43%
How often the home health team check patients' risk of falling.	100%	95%	94%
How often the home health team checked patients for depression.	100%	95%	91%
For patients with diabetes, how often the home health team got doctors orders, gave foot care and taught patients about foot care.	97%	70%	83%
Preventing Unplanned Hospital Care
How often home health patients had to be admitted to the hospital.	16%	22%	29%

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call us at 801.463.2478, or visit out website millcreekhomehealth.com. We are happy to listen to your concerns and offer suggestions.