Why Home Health Care is Essential Amid COVID-19
Compassionate care has always been an underlying feature of home health care. Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, agency leaders recognize that compassion – for staff and for patients – is even more important than ever for those anxious about in-person visits. Joanne Cunningham, executive director of the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH), recently told Home Health Care News, “I think the entire home health care community has been on high activation and is … getting increased outreach from all of their hospital, health system, physician, public health partners who are looking for home health to play a meaningful role in the treatment of COVID-positive patients… The safest place for many folks is at home, particularly when you have to deal with such an infectious disease and virus.”
How Virtual Care Supports Agencies and Patients During the Coronavirus Pandemic
As nurses strive to continue to check-in with their patients, agency executives are turning to a virtual care communication platform to ensure the continuity of care, especially during this challenging time.
- Critical care: Virtual visits and coronavirus-specific assessment can be used to determine if the patient is at-risk for COVID-19 and align on the next steps for proper treatment. Additional specialists can be integrated into the virtual visits. Data analysis can also help agencies identify emerging issues by patient and by population (e.g., additional conditions, location, age, etc.)
- Continued care: Regular check-ins can now be conducted virtually amongst patients and their nurses. For those patients who are hesitant to receive in-person visits, video-based virtual visits help these patients continue to receive the support, motivation, and guidance they need to remain on track with their treatment plan. Staff also value the convenience of virtual visits as many are also anxious about the transmission of the coronavirus or other infectious diseases.
- Compassionate care: By using a communication platform to broadcast messages with CDC guidance and/or updates on COVID-19, agencies are proving that they are keeping their patients’ health and well-being forefront in their care. Patients (and their family caregivers) appreciate feeling like a VIP by receiving compassionate communications. Administrators appreciate the automated functionality which allows them to save valuable staff time and labor costs typically associated with calling each and every patient as well as responding to patients’ incoming calls about the coronavirus.
In Home Care Nursing: Surviving in an Ever-Changing Care Environment, Tina M. Marrelli explains that “home care is the most unique practice setting because the nurse or other team member must fit into and function effectively in the patient space, and their most beloved place often times, rather than the patient fitting into the hospital or other setting.” As home health care becomes increasingly virtual, agencies are deploying Synzi’s platform to seamlessly and safely “fit and function effectively” in patients’ lives.