Retire VA 22 - 10

The Importance of
Home Health Care
written by Rachael Smith
Learn more about your home health care options and how to best plan for your golden years at home.
W
hen thinking of home
health care, there
is a wide variety of
services that are
available and families
should take time to educate themselves
on what will work specifically for
themselves and their loved ones when it
comes to aging.
Those who work in this space of health
care put those services in different
buckets, including for those who have
an acute or chronic medical condition
that requires the skills of a nurse for
therapists to treat in their home, and
then in another bucket is personal care
and support services for individuals
who have functional deficits that make
self-care challenging or impossible to
do independently, Lisa Sprinkel, Vice
President for Home Health and Hospice
Services at Carilion Home Care & Hospice,
says.
She says there are end-of-life services
10 / Retire-VA.com / RETIRE-VA 2023
which can occur in two forms: palliative
care services and hospice care. Palliative
care can be provided to a patient while
he or she is still pursuing a plan of care
that is intended to cure their disease.
And those services are focused on
those symptoms that patients may be
experiencing and addressing those
symptoms more so than the disease
process.
Hospice is delivered to patients when
their goals of care have changed and they
are less interested in curing during their
disease and more interested in pursuing
goals that focus on comfort and quality.
The mission of hospice at Carilion is
to walk that final journey with patients
and Sarah Browning, Director of Systems
Operations & Support for Carilion Home
Care & Hospice says staff does not take
that lightly.
" We provide very compassionate care
to those that that entrust their care to
us and we take the mission very, very
seriously, " she says. " And we want the
hospice patients and their families to feel
very supported by our teams and to make
them feel like that together we can walk
this journey. "
She says nationally 15% of patients
who enroll in hospice programs graduate
from the program, but that leaves at 85%
that will not.
Sprinkel says hospice care and
palliative care is typically funded by
insurance plans or individual health
plans.
Carilion has another bucket of service
which is durable medical equipment.
" So for those of us who need to adapt
our home environment to take care
of someone we love, durable medical
equipment companies can help us with
those services like obtaining walkers or
wheelchairs or bedside commodes or
the technical things needed to deliver
care, " she says. " And then there are
opportunities for patients to receive IV

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Retire VA 22

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