HCA Celebrates National Home Care Month
and Home Care Aide Week November 2008

Honoring the thousands of home care professionals
serving patients with dedication, compassion and respect.

November, National Home Care Month, is a time when the home care community joins together to celebrate our shared mission of providing high-quality, compassionate and comprehensive in-home care.

As part of Home Care Month, we also reserve special recognition for Home Care Aide Week on November 9-15 where we honor the extraordinary commitment of clinical staff who carry out this vital mission each and every day.

Home care month is also a time to honor the thousands of patients whose courageous will and determined spirit of independence inspires us all.

Throughout the month of November, HCA will oversee an extensive public outreach campaign to highlight the value of home care to patients, their families and the health care system as a whole. Our National Home Care Month message emphasizes that:

• Home Care allows patients to receive vital health and social services in their setting of first choice – the home – where the patient is most comfortable and where the patient experiences the greatest sense of security, stability, and belonging.
• Home Care is increasingly embraced as a cost-efficient, community-based alternative to short or long-term institutional care provided in a hospital or nursing home setting.
• Home Care succeeds in shortening a patient’s length of stay in the medical facility setting by providing post-acute care that would otherwise occur only in a hospital.
• Medical and technological advances have broadened the scope of home care offerings beyond the core of professional nursing and aide services, making it an increasingly viable option for treating a growing range of acute and chronic health conditions outside of traditionally defined health settings.

Visit this site throughout the month of November to learn more about our efforts – and the efforts of our provider members – to raise public awareness about home and community-based services.

Honoring Our Dedicated Caregivers

On November 5, HCA presented awards to two home health aides and one nurse telehealth champion in recognition of National Home Care Month. Here are their stories.

Ms. Fitzgerald and Mr. Wilson
received the Home Health Aide of the Year Awards:

Denise Fitzgerald of Troy, NY-based Eddy Visiting Nurse Association has been a dedicated home health aide at Eddy Home Care for 16 years. A blind client depends on Ms. Fitzgerald to not only assist with her bathing and grooming, but also to "be her eyes." Ms. Fitzgerald arranges her patient's clothing so that she has matching outfits available, keeps her client's apartment clean and organized so accidents can be prevented, and keeps up a lively conversation when working with her client. Ms. Fitzgerald has been a mentor for newly trained home health aides and has acted as an excellent role model, routinely working more than 40 hours per week. In the spring, Ms. Fitzgerald only missed two days of work after a fire in her apartment building, which forced her family to live in hotels without belongings for weeks. In her nomination, clients and families had much to say about Ms. Fitzgerald: "She just jumps right in and has a professional, quiet manner"; "I could not manage without her"; "She gives 110%"; and "Denise helps me to keep my husband at home with me."

James Wilson of Bayside, NY-based St. Mary's Community Care Professionals has been employed by St. Mary's since January and currently provides services to a 12-year-old child with special needs. On a recent supervisory visit to the patient's home, Mr. Wilson was observed assisting the young boy with his adaptive bicycle. This meaningful gesture demonstrated Mr. Wilson's appreciation for the patient's ability to grasp a sense independence and pride of accomplishment. The patient's mother noted: "The first time he took my son out on his adaptive bicycle, tears came to my eyes because my son was riding for the first time in his life - I never dreamed that I would see this day." The young patient himself included a letter of recommendation with Mr. Wilson's nomination, praising him as one of his best aides. "I know that he is not family, but deep down in my heart, he is like a big brother to me," the young patient wrote.

Mr. Clements
Received the Home Telehealth Champion of the Year Award:

Rodney Clements, LPN, of the Livingston County Department of Health, for his work championing Livingston County's telehealth program. Mr. Clements has been a dedicated and hardworking nurse for Livingston County for eight years. He is a Vietnam veteran and a former computer engineer for Kodak. His nursing skills are excellent and he stays current with issues in the cardiac world. Mr. Clements continues to promote the telemedicine program at Livingston County to the more resistant staff and keeps the doctors informed of its importance and effectiveness. He has witnessed telemedicine patients take a remarkable interest in their disease and in their own recovery, allowing people to see how their lifestyle choices make a difference in their cardiac status. Patients have purchased scales, BP cuffs and notebooks to keep record of their daily vital signs, and they bring the data with them to their visits with doctors. Mr. Clements has always gone the extra mile for his patients, from taking them fishing on his day off, to picking them up groceries and medication to stopping for a patient's favorite coffee. His kindness and caring is worn on his sleeve and his love for nursing is shown by the way he lives his life.

Also, earlier in the year, during HCA’s Annual Conference in June, we presented our Caring Award to four home care professionals who are making a difference in the lives of patients. Hear their stories.

Alisa Huggins, RN
Field Supervisor/Community Health Nurse,
Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation

Alisa Huggins’ approach to treating patients living in their home with HIV is nothing short of extraordinary. Alisa was working with an HIV patient in his forties who had been homeless but had obtained an apartment and was medically compliant. When his sister suddenly died, he spiraled into a deep depression, became a drug addict, and stopped taking his medications, eating properly or caring for his personal hygiene. One day she showed up at his apartment armed with cleaning products and, working along with his home health aide, scrubbed her patient’s home so it would be habitable. For months afterward, she would prepare extra food at home and bring it to him the next day.

Gloria Madrid, Home Health Aide
Jewish Home & Hospital Lifecare System

Gloria Madrid has been caring for her client, Mr. P, for the past 2 years, 7 days a week, 6 hours a day. Gloria is not obligated to work every weekend; however, she understands her client’s concern about having different aides in his home and has dedicated herself to going the extra mile by working every weekend. Her vigilance and resourcefulness secured a safe living environment for her patient when Mr. P’s son, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, threatened him harm.

Robert O’Hara, Home Health Aide
Eddy Home Care Agency

Bob O’Hara projects a positive and caring attitude towards clients, families and agency co-workers. When starting a case, Bob always focuses on the client’s interests and preferences. In December 2007, Bob’s calm composure and quick response to respiratory distress in a client with a tracheotomy helped avert the patient’s re-hospitalization and life-threatening complications. Bob assisted the wheelchair-bound client in reaching his oxygen, nebulizer and suctioning equipment, turned them on and then called 911.

Martha Vauss, Senior Home Health Aide
Visiting Nurse Signature Care

Compassionate is a word most people use to describe Martha Vauss, a senior home health aide who has been serving clients of Visiting Nurse Service of Rochester and Monroe County and Visiting Nurse Signature Care for thirty years. Martha first joined VNS in August of 1977 and was promoted to senior home health aide in the early 1980s. Through the knowledge, insight and experience she gained in her job, Martha was chosen as one of the first home health aides in the agency to help establish a career ladder for paraprofessional staff. No one is a better role model for, or spokesperson about, the important work of home health aides in the community.

Read more about these extraordinary caregivers

About HCA
The Home Care Association of New York State, Inc. (HCA) and its home health care provider members work to promote excellence and support high-quality, cost-effective home care and community services to the citizens of New York State.

HCA’s mission is to promote and enhance the quality, accessibility and availability of home care by enabling its members to meet the needs of the individuals and communities they serve.