News & Events
Grant Awarded to Day Kimball HomeCare by the CT Health
and Education Facilities Authority Provides New Home
Medical Technology
PUTNAM, CT – Effective June 1, 2007, the CT Health and Education Facilities Authority (CHEFA) granted Day Kimball HomeCare, a department of Day Kimball Hospital, $60,000 which is supporting the lease of 51 Honeywell HomMed® Health Monitoring Systems.
The Honeywell HomMed® Health Monitoring System is an FDA Class II, Hospital Grade Medical Device that allows HomeCare staff to know a patient’s health status each and every day. The system is currently installed in 20 patients’ homes and provides proactive care by transmitting information to the telehealth station nurse each day.
Director of Day Kimball HomeCare, Judie Blackmore, RN, BS, shares her experience with implementing the new system. “It’s a very positive and exciting change for us here in HomeCare. The nurses are really enthusiastic and have enjoyed learning about the new equipment and the patients have been really interested in the program as well. It’s definitely a beneficial program for us because of the positive impact on practice in the care of our patients.”
When training began on the new equipment, two nurses were trained to install the equipment in the home and to train the other nurses. The two “champion nurses” are Jennifer LeDuc, RN, and Michelle Blanchette, RN. Joan Page, RN, and Renee Smith, RN, were chosen as the Central Station Nurses who share the daily monitoring of the telehealth station.
August 31 marked the first home install of the Honeywell HomMed Health Monitoring System. The monitor is hooked up to the phone line and allows data to move through an 800 number onto the Day Kimball server so it can be downloaded onto the computers.
The goals and benefits of this program are to reduce re-hospitalization rates and to provide patients and their families with a sense of independence, control and security over the disease process. The program also allows for early intervention and has prevented three hospitalizations thus far. The physicians involved with the monitored patients are enthusiastic about the program and benefit from receiving “real time” data.
Day Kimball Hospital is a non-profit, 103-bed community hospital in Putnam. Day Kimball has been in operation since 1894, and provides for the health care needs of Northeastern Connecticut, and nearby Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Day Kimball is served by more than 1,000 employees and more than 100 physicians, dentists and medical specialists.
In coordination with its affiliated health centers in Danielson, Dayville, Plainfield and Thompson, Day Kimball offers acute and general medical/surgical care, a 24-hour Emergency and Prompt Care Department, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, cardiopulmonary and psychiatric programs.
|
