Dottie will be home for Christmas thanks to WellSpan's Hospital at Home program
Instead of spending Christmas being confined to four walls at WellSpan York Hospital, away from family and friends, Dottie Rattigan was sent home, thanks to the WellSpan Hospital at Home program.
To help alleviate the capacity strain at WellSpan York Hospital and to open beds for other patients, the program was born on Sept. 28, 2020.
It provides treatment for patients who are stable and have such as pneumonia and asthma but who previously would have required hospitalization. These patients receive services such as intravenous therapy, oral medications, lab tests and remote monitoring, as well as one or two daily visits from a nurse, during which they also get a remote visit with a doctor.
Through this program, over 1,200 beds have been freed up for the hospital, said Adam Updegraff, a family nurse practitioner who is director of the WellSpan Hospital at Home program. Patients need to meet the criteria to qualify for the program: "Anybody 18 years of age or older, who lives 30 minutes from York Hospital, anybody who speaks English or Spanish," Updegraff said.
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"That's only because our remote patient monitoring equipment is set up for those languages currently, and every patient gets enrolled in our remote teaching monitoring program where they have a virtual nurse," he added.
One eligible patient was Rattigan.
Shortly after Thanksgiving, Dottie Rattigan, 77, a manager of an apartment complex in West Manchester Township, was admitted in WellSpan York Hospital with pneumonia, bronchitis and congestive heart failure.
This wasn't her first rodeo at the hospital.
"I have been there a couple times, and at Christmas time it's very depressing, it's very lonely," Rattigan said. "You don't want your family to be stuck there because they feel obligated, and I don't want that."
Updegraff explained to Rattigan that the program would allow her to be treated with intravenous drug therapy and oxygen for her lung issues from the comfort of her own home.
"I was in the hospital bed, and I couldn't visualize it at first and said this can't be done," Rattigan said. "When I was there, I was so sick, and at home you start feeling better because you are around everybody in your household, you got your own bed, TV —everything is right there for you."
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To date, 572 patients have been treated since the program began. With hospitals near or above 100% percent capacity, WellSpan has employed several other methods to help lessen the pressure during the most recent COVID-19 surge. WellSpan transitioned its Surgery and Rehabilitation Hospital to an acute-care site, is delaying or postponing non-urgent surgeries and has added additional agency staffing to its hospitals.
"Really focusing in and treating the patient for their acute medical need and setting them up for discharge success," Updegraff said. "When we discharge patients, as in Dottie's case, to the WellSpan visiting nurses, they are over the acute medical part that requires hospitalization, and now they just need less frequent monitoring."
Rattigan has one message for others: "If they are leery of it, try it," she said. "The hospital can only help so much."
WellSpan is expanding the program to WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital in early 2022 and WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital in the spring of 2022. To learn more about WellSpan Hospital at Home, go here.
Kaity Assaf is a news reporter at York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. Contact her at kassaf1@ydr.com, on Twitter @kaitythekite or by phone, 717-472-0960.
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This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: WellSpan Hospital at Home sets patients up for discharge success
