How WakeMed Home Health helped Cleola Davis manage her mother’s health
The right home health team and technology have an unexpected benefit: They boost the well-being of family members as well as patients.
Cleola Davis, the daughter of 94-year-old Sarah, was overjoyed to learn this.
After a fall, Sarah, who also suffered from heart failure, experienced a serious setback in her heart condition in addition to an elbow injury. Suddenly, Cleola found herself in “the driver’s seat” as her mother’s primary caregiver.
The WakeMed Home Health Team
Confidence was the greatest gift the WakeMed Home Health staff, occupational therapists, physical therapists and nurses gave me. While hospitalized, cardiologist Dr. [Brian] Go talked to us about ways to improve care for my mother at home.
Within hours I was visited by Tish, a social worker, and Sheila of the WakeMed Heart Failure Program. Mom’s cardiologist, Dr. Othman approved her entry into the program. They helped me to enroll my mother in both the Heart Failure Program and WakeMed Home Health. We are so glad we did!
We received detailed instructions about how to care for mom at home, but I still felt like I didn’t know what to do. I was so nervous and unsure.
The nurses and therapists from WakeMed Home Health filled me with confidence.
I always looked forward to their coming because each of them would teach me as they worked with my mom. Each different occupational therapist or physical therapist who visited would explain things in a way that a non-medical person like me could understand.
The nurses helped me learn what symptoms to watch for to tell if Mom was having trouble with her heart condition. After a while, I felt like I was a member of the team and the team had muscle!
TeleHealth Technology
WakeMed Home Health offers TeleHealth technology for patients like Sarah who have chronic conditions like heart failure. A technologist installs the TeleHealth equipment in a person’s home. The equipment is very easy to use. It includes a scale, a monitor, a small device to measure a person’s oxygen level, a tablet and a blood pressure cuff.
The TeleHealth technology also benefited Cleola as a caregiver.
The equipment made it possible for nurses to monitor Mom just like when she was in the hospital. I can’t tell you what a comfort that is.
It also kept us on schedule. We knew that at 9 am Mom needed to be weighed and we needed to check all of her vital signs to send the data to the nurses for review.
If we didn’t, the nurse would call us to make sure everything was okay. We got lots of help with the equipment so we knew how to use it. I even use it when I think something is going on with Mom’s health and I want to check her oxygen level or blood pressure. Sometimes Mom would be ill at night. There was a nurse at WakeMed Home Health available all night to help. I love the nurses!
About WakeMed Home Health
WakeMed Home Health can make the difference in supporting patients to stay in their home during difficult times of transition of illness and recovery.
Home Health and TeleHealth monitoring can support patients to avoid a hospitalization or a re-hospitalization with education, monitoring, care and communication with the family and primary medical homes. If you feel this level of care may be helpful, talk to your doctor about WakeMed Home Health to see if you or your family may qualify for this service.
For additional information, contact WakeMed Home Health by calling: 919-350-7990.
You must be logged in to post a comment.