St. David's starts home health care, hospice program
When Lorraine Kaplan broke her hip this spring, there was a debate about how much she could improve after she got out of skilled nursing. Because Kaplan, 89, was now in memory care for dementia, her family didn't know whether to pursue home health care to provide physical therapists to build her strength as well as people to help with wound care or to pursue hospice care to make her comfortable.
The Kaplans used the new St. David's HealthCare at Home and St. David’s Hospice & Family Care programs to do an assessment of Lorraine Kaplan through the hospice program, which determined that it wasn't time for hospice care yet because she could still improve physically. HealthCare at Home then began scheduling home health visits for physical therapy, nursing care and even music therapy.
"We needed someone to work with her and someone who could communicate with the family as well," said her daughter-in-law Patricia Kaplan, who is an administrative coordinator for St. David's HealthCare at Home. "My husband and I could not be there for every visit. We were really looking for someone we could rely on for what they were seeing."
The Kaplans said the hospice assessment was good because now they know the signs to look for that would alert them when it was time to make that transition from home health to hospice. "It's a very emotional decision for a family," Patricia Kaplan said.
Lorraine Kaplan has made improvements since receiving home health services, which are covered by Medicare or insurance, and learned how to safely use a walker at times instead of a wheelchair, improve her range of motion and build up her strength.
"There's a lot of coordination that goes on at a high level," Patricia Kaplan said. "They are on it. My husband sleeps much better at night."
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St. David's HealthCare operates eight hospitals in the Austin area and is in the process of building a behavioral health hospital in North Austin, as well as an acute care hospital in Kyle and one in Leander. The health system's expansion into home health and hospice care began when St. David's parent company HCA Healthcare bought a majority stake in Brookdale Health Care Services from Brookdale Senior Living last year. At the local level, Brookdale's home health and hospice services were rebranded to St. David’s HealthCare at Home and St. David’s Hospice & Family Care this June.
"For St. David's, it's a much closer partner to work with for us and improves our ability to move patients to the appropriate side of care," said David Huffstutler, president and chief executive officer of St. David’s HealthCare.
While people who are in St. David's hospitals still will be given a choice in hospice or home health providers when they are released from the hospital, Huffstutler said this expansion under the St. David's brand allows for better coordination and ideally a quicker transition to these levels of care, rather than waiting in the hospital for step-down care to become available.
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Huffstutler said there are plans to expand these two new sectors of care for St. David's. "We'll be working with Brookdale to do that investing together, ramping up staffing, expanding geographic locations or staging of staff to make sure we can address the increasing demands we have."
The Brookdale team has been doing home health and hospice care since 2013. "We have a very tenured staff," said Robin Nunnely, hospice director for St. David's Hospice & Family Care. This change doesn't mean that the only patients it sees will be coming through St. David's hospitals, just like when it was Brookdale, it didn't only take care of people in Brookdale senior living sites.
A lot of what they will do is educate families about the different level of care and services available under each program, Nunnely said. For hospice, that includes social work, symptom management, music therapy, chaplain services, nursing, medications and equipment. St. David's Hospice & Family Care also grants a last wish for its clients such as a brisket cookoff, a visit with a miniature horse, a visit to an ice rink, or playing trumpet one more time with a high school band.
Nunnely also educates people on that if there is improvement, they can leave hospice care and go to home health, or if they are receiving home health care, they can transition to hospice when the time is right. Like home health, hospice is also covered by insurance of Medicare.
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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: St. David's starts home health care, hospice program
