Home care growth spawns retail store
Home care growth spawns retail store
Dispensing products with advice
Like other hospitals around the country, Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Islip, NY, was discharging patients earlier and earlier. Many of those patients moved into home care. But although it has its own home health department, the hospital’s administrators felt there was an aspect of care still missing.
"Medicare is reimbursing less and less for medical products," says Jim O’Connor, RRT, director of respiratory care at Good Samaritan. "And when they do reimburse, it is only for one type of product. Patients get discharged and don’t know where to go. They don’t know how to find the things they need for their home care."
The solution was simple but dramatic: The hospital licensed the name of Homecare America and opened an off-site retail store that deals in everything from durable medical equipment, such as hospital beds and wheelchairs, to canes and wound dressings more than 5,000 products in all. O’Connor also serves as president of Homecare America.
Patient education
Although Good Samaritan is certainly one of the first hospitals to take such a step, O’Connor says others are considering the option of opening their own retail outlets, an idea he recommends. "We are offering a real continuum of care here," he says. "We have competitive prices and a bigger selection of merchandise."
In operation since May and located a block from the hospital, the store also provides patients with education about the products information that drug stores don’t offer, O’Connor says. There also are seminars on specific ailments, such as diabetes or congestive heart failure.
The staff at the store include a nurse, a diabetes educator, a respiratory therapist, and an enterostomal therapist, O’Connor says. Those staff educate not only the patients, but also the home care department staff, says Mary Ellen Polit, RN, MSN, acting director of the department.
"This way, our nurses can get an education on products and their benefits," Polit says. "The staff can bounce ideas off the people in the store. They can find out what brands are most user-friendly and what is returned least often. We also learn what is most likely to be covered by insurance companies or Medicare."
Polit says her home care staff can then pass this information on to patients.
Encouraging response
Customer feedback has been great so far, O’Connor says. "The community and the staff think this has been a really positive experience." A continuous quality improvement program will be implemented in the coming year so patient satisfaction can be ascertained more truly.
"If we can get patients out of the hospital earlier in a safe manner, then great," he says. "But that leaves less time for educating our patients. Then the slack has to be made up somewhere." Homecare America offers that to patients, O’Connor says, and so far, it has satisfied them and the staff while providing a new source of income to the hospital.
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