Home Care

Services/Responsibilities

The Home Care department sees patients of all ages and diagnoses. We pride ourselves on our teamwork. Home Care provides individualized care to each patient, offering a mix of services in the patient’s home that includes skilled nursing, certified nurse assistant, physical, occupational, and speech therapies, and a medical social worker. We also have a non-medical Medicaid Wavier program in which we provide homemaking, personal care, and respite services. Home Care serves Daveiss, Ohio, Hancock, and McLean counties.

Technology

Nurses and therapists are currently using McKesson Horizon Home Care Software. Improvements throughout the department include practitioners being able to use laptops in patients' homes for “real time” data entry and the ability to access patient data while out of the Home Care office.

Lifeline Personal Response Services is a new emergency response system available to the community through OMHS. This service allows you to live at home independently while maintaining a link to emergency assistance with the push of a button. Lifeline operates in conjunction with your home telephone service twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are currently 390 lifeline clients. Lifeline services are available to residents of Daviess, Hancock, McLean, and Ohio counties in Kentucky as well as Perry and Spencer counties in Indiana. 

OMHS Home Care is also the exclusive provider in our service area of a daily, in-home vital sign monitoring system. The “HomMed” system monitors a patient’s vital signs, weight, and oxygen saturation on a daily basis and transmits the data to the Home Care office. Registered nurses monitor this data in the office and take appropriate actions as needed. This technology has been effective in decreasing Emergency Room visits and re-hospitalization, as it prompts early intervention to a change in the patient's condition. 

Staffing

The average patient census is 180 patients in Home Care and 100 patients in the non-medical Medicaid Waiver program. Home Care nurses average 5-6 home visits a day, based on the patient's acuity level.

Training/Continuing Education

Home Care Specific CE courses are offered for nurses, including supervisor and leadership training. Our service line educator provides education to all staff on an ongoing basis. Home Care staff also utilizes OMHS educational opportunities.

Continuous Quality Improvement

The staff has a full time RN who does performance improvement for the department. This nurse monitors external and internal benchmarking data, risk management data/patient falls, patient satisfaction, and infection control. This nurse also provides education and works to improve department processes. For the second year in a row, OMHS Home Care has been named to the 2007 HomeCare Elite award, which places this unit in the top 25% of home health agencies in the United States .