Home care encompasses a wide range of services, involving a tremendous amount of advanced technology and professional care, in addition to individualized one-on-one patient care and focused support for family members and caregivers. “It really is amazing how much care can be provided in the home today, even compared to ten years ago,” stated Jerry L. Cleveland, president and CEO for Ministry Home Care, Inc.

Ministry Home Care provides care to more than 4,000 individuals every day in 40 Wisconsin counties. Under Cleveland’s leadership, the program has grown by leaps and bounds since the company’s inception in 1998.

Home health care is primarily for rehabilitation or maintenance of health status, and is often prescribed for patients after a hospital discharge, and often in lieu of a stay at a rehab facility. For patients who are in need of physical, occupational, or speech therapy, home health care can be a viable alternative. Registered nurses can provide professional wound care, medication management, and oversight of complex patient needs – helping individuals to recover more quickly in the comfort of their home environment.

“Telemonitoring is a really cool opportunity for individuals to be closely monitored in the privacy of their home. We install a small wireless monitor, and personally train them on the simple operations. ” Cleveland described, Each day, or at whatever frequency the doctor prescribes, the patient transmits their vital statistics to a special nurse who watches for changes that would indicate a potential problem. With this program, we can do a lot to limit worsening of conditions and re-hospitalizations.”

For patients who are nearing the end of life – those with terminal illnesses, hospice can provide a team approach to care in the home. In fact, hospice will provide care wherever a patient calls home, which could be in an assisted living facility, nursing home or other community-based facility in addition to their personal residence.

“Hospice is often misunderstood,” commented Cleveland. “So many people think hospice is a place. But actually, the vast majority of hospice care is provided to people in their personal homes.”

He went on to explain some of the other myths about hospice – one was that hospice is only for people with cancer. While that was the case when hospice was first started in the US, today roughly half of all hospice patients have non-cancer diagnoses – liver, heart, or lung diseases, ALS, dementias, and failure to thrive are all common in the hospice world. Another myth: hospice is only for the elderly. Hospice teams actually care for people from infancy through the very elderly.  

As quickly as the rest of the technological world is advancing, so is the world of home health care. Today, many infusion (IV) therapies that used to require in-patient or out-patient clinic supervision can be provided in the home by professional infusion nurses. The list of medications approved for home therapies is constantly expanding.

During the past year, Ministry added infusion therapy services through their new division now known as Ministry Home Care Plus. The Plus program also provides home medical equipment and home respiratory therapy, which includes oxygen, nebulizers, sleep apnea therapies and a host of other treatments. “Our teams with Ministry Home Care Plus really round out the continuum of services we are able to provide,” stated Cleveland. “We all work together to keep people in their homes.”

For more information on Ministry’s services, call 1-866-740-1166 or visit ministryhomecare.org.