Telehome Care Program

The Visiting Nurse Association / Blue Water Hospice is using state of the art technology to assist in the delivery of high quality care to home care patients in our community.

In 1999, the Visiting Nurse Association / Blue Water Hospice was the first in Michigan to utilize grant funding to provide Telehome Care as an additional service to home care patients. Telehome Care is a way of enhancing care, monitoring, and educating a patient at home over ordinary telephone lines. The staff or profession and paraprofessional staff makes a video visit to the patient’s home on a day when the nurse is not scheduled to visit the patient's home. During this video visit the nurse is able to see and talk with the patient, take vital signs, lung, heart and bowel sounds, weights, blood sugars, and pulse oxygen readings. The patient can see and talk with the nurse. Any questions or problems can be identified and resolved right away.

Who Will Benefit from Telehome Care?

• Patients requiring two or more skilled nursing visits per week
• Patients who have used the emergency room more than twice in the last six months
• Patients who have frequent hospitalizations
• Anxious patients requiring frequent visits
• Patients who do not require hands-on care
• Patients at risk for institutionalization
• Managed care patients

Potential Benefits of Telehome Care Visits

• Traditional home visits are enhanced without being replaced
• Patient satisfaction is increased
• Emergency Room visits are decreased
• Patient and family involvement in the plan of care is increased
• Patients, family, and physicians have an increased sense of security
• Patient's socialization base is broadened
• Telephone calls from patient to physician are decreased
• Unnecessary re-hospitalizations are avoided
• A cost-effective means of quality care is provided.

The Visiting Nurse Association/Blue Water Hospice Telehomecare Equipment is funded through grants from St. Clair County Community Foundation and The St. Clair County Commission on Aging.

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For further information on
how to access our
Telehomecare Progam

Call: 810-984-4131
or
1-800-959-4131