Staff Reports
Schneck Home Services is celebrating Home Care and Hospice Month this month.
Denise Swegles, director of Schneck Home Services, said it’s a time to honor Schneck’s home health and hospice nurses, home care aides, therapists, chaplains, volunteers and social workers who make a remarkable difference for the patients and families they serve.
“These heroic caregivers play a central role in our health care system and in homes across the nation,” she said.
Home health care is generally regarded as one of the most viable solutions for providing long-term care to the nation’s growing elderly population, according to a news release from the Seymour hospital.
It involves an extensive list of services to attend to multiple needs of the patient and typically begins with a nurse assessing the patient’s physical and psychosocial needs, consulting with appropriate health care team members and family, initiating physician orders and evaluating patient response to treatment.
Home rehabilitation therapy provides professional services in the home for post-hospital orthopedics care as well as neurologic and other immobility issues.
Hospice provides comfort, compassion and end-of-life support to patients and their families in the comfort of their home. Patients usually are referred to hospice care when they are in the last phase of an illness so they may live as fully and as comfortably as possible.
Hospice care includes the activities listed above for home care as well as coordinating medications for optimum patient symptom management, coordinating patient care by utilizing critical thinking and performance ability and coordinating care and services with the family to provide excellent customer service.
As the preferred choice for most patients, home care and hospice offers the greatest cost savings for thousands of Americans, according to the news release.
For example, Medicare pays nearly $2,000 per day for a typical hospital stay and $450 per day for a typical nursing home stay. Meanwhile, home care costs less than $100 a day and helps many U.S. seniors remain independent at home, enrich their lives and keep in touch with those they love.
“The value of home care and hospice is immeasurable,” Swegles said. “With 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the need for health care will continue to rise, and costs will continue to skyrocket. This is where home care and hospice come in.”
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Schneck Home Services offers professional health care services in the home, including registered nurses, home health aides, rehabilitation therapy and hospice.
For information, call 812-522-0460 or visit schneckmed.org.
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