Transitional Care program seeking positive outcomes

By BRYCE KELLY

Mt. Pleasant News

HCHC is seeing positive outcomes from the Transitional Care Program, according to reports made at the last Healthy Henry County Communities (HHCC) board meeting on Tuesday.

Within the program, nurses from HCHC work with patients after they have been discharged from HCHC to ease their transition back home through periodic face-to-face and telephone visits that take place over a 30-day period.

?This is primarily for every patient that is discharged from HCHC that is labeled as an acute status patient,? said HCHC nurse Shelley Van Dorin, who has extensive experience in working within the program.

The program was officially launched on July 15 of this year, and while the program is only about a month old, 13 HCHC patients have already taken part in the program and have made a fully successful transition back home without readmission to the hospital.

?In a hospital setting, it?s easy to regulate a patient?s well-being. However, when that patient gets home and has to remember how to take medications or maneuver around the house on perhaps crutches, its easy to get overwhelmed,? said HCHC Community Health Director, Travis Johnson. ?With this program, we are able to send nurses into the home, answer questions, repeatedly check up on the well-being of patients and hopefully prevent hospital readmission due to preventable issues.?

The other positive aspect to the program, says HCHC nurse Lori Bolin, is that it comes at no additional cost to patients and insurance companies are not billed for services. In addition, patients are also made aware of other community-based resources, should they need help beyond what is available through HCHC.

?We do want to incorporate programs like the Fellowship Cup, SEIBUS or The Family Connection when we can,? said Bolin. ?Giving patients that one-on-one nursing attention may bring up the need for community-based services, so we want to be consciously making patients aware of the additional services that are out there.?

This program was made possible largely from the Telligen Grant, which provides about $30,000 to help support the program?s nursing staff. The grant will last for an entire calendar year.

The Henry County Fair may be over for another year, but that didn?t stop the HHCC board in taking a brief look back at this year?s fair. This year, like in previous years, HHCC hosted a food stand at the fairgrounds that featured primarily healthy meal options. Overall, the board reported about a $450 profit from the food stand, which is up from last year?s profit.

?All in all, things went well this year at the fair despite some of the weather we had to deal with,? said HHCC coordinator Kelly Carr. ?We received a ton of feedback from fairgoers saying that they really liked the food and appreciated having healthy food options, which was really encouraging to hear.?

Carr reported that fruit was a very hot item this year, and also said that a lot of positive feedback came from those that tried the peanut butter banana burritos ? a new item on this year?s menu.

The last major item on the agenda up for discussion surrounded the possible implementation of additional geocaches in Henry County. As part of a HHCC?s physical activity committee project, the board is tossing around the idea of adding HHCC-sponsored geocaches in every Henry County community in an effort to promote physical activity, family bonding and county exploration.

According to geochaching.com, there are about 33 official geocaches in Henry County alone, with 26 of them found during the month of July by at least one individual.

?This is a very popular activity for people. Lots of families and couples do it together for fun, and it seems like something we could get involved with,? said Carr.

At this stage, the board is still organizing the details and the costs surrounding the idea, but hope to have further information to bring forth for group discussion at later meetings.

In other news, the board discussed the following items:

? Updated community service directories are now available to the general public. Please contact Kelly Carr at carrk@hchc.org to receive copies.

? An HHCC-sponsored kickball tournament will take place on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 10 a.m., at East Lake Park. Contact Carr or stop by the Mt. Pleasant REC Center for more information or to sign up. Registration is due by Sept. 10.

The next HHCC board meeting will be Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 1 p.m., in the HCHC Health Education Center.