Anna Hollingsworth has been a nurse since 2013. “I started out in pediatrics, switched to geriatric psychic, then transitioned to home health and I have never
looked back”, Anna recalls. Now, Anna is the manager of the Home, Health and Hospice nursing team at West Tennessee Healthcare Henry County.
Anna enjoys the smaller setting of the Home, Health and Hospice program here at West Tennessee Healthcare Henry County. The entire home health and hospice team really knows their patients and their families. “I love that we get to take care of one patient at atime,” explains Anna. “The care feels very personal and for the hour we are in the home we give the patient our undivided attention.”
Home Health is acute care that usually lasts around three months. Patients may be adjusting to a new medicine and need assistance, taken a fall or recovering from an injury, or they may be recovering from a short hospital stay, but they need more care at home. Home Health patients are on the road to recovery but require additional care.
Hospice care is quite different. Comfort care is the main focus and most of the time the patient isn’t going to improve. “Occasionally a patient will get much better and be discharged, Anna shares, but patients are typically with us for the long haul. We help patients with their medications and do everything that is needed to make their days more comfortable. We also have a chaplain and a social worker, so the patient and the family are all cared for during a difficult time.
Dr. Stephanie Dunnagan serves as the Medical Director for the Hospice program. She sees the patients in their homes to determine eligibility. “Families can call us to inquire about hospice care for a loved one. We can send a nurse to the home for a site visit and to make an evaluation. We won’t admit a patient at that point, but we can suggest if we think it’s time for them to speak to their primary physician about hospice care,” Anna explains. “We can also provide home health services if a patient is in a rehab facility. We’re an extra layer of care for a patient during their recovery.”
Carol Richardson knows firsthand how valuable the WTH Hospice team can be when you need them. “Dr. Bo Griffey was our physician. Tom, my husband, was seeing Dr. Griffey monthly. Dr. Griffey could see how hard it was for Tom to make it in for the appointments, and he had determined things were not going in a positive direction. The first month Dr. Bo suggested hospice care; Tom turned it down. He just didn’t want to hear the word hospice– I think.”
“Mary Jane Murphee is a friend of mine and was once the head nurse for the hospice program here”, recalls Carol. She explained to me that hospice is about living, not about dying. It allows the patient to make decisions regarding the way they want to live out their final days.”
Tom really wanted to stay at home and Carol was determined to carry out his wish. His very first interaction was with the remarkable nurse, Denise Brogdan. He instantly felt calm and at ease with her. The hospice nurses provided Tom’s medicine, supplies, and equipment. “They spent so much one on one time with him”, remembers Carol. “They connected with him and he connected with them. They became our family. Without this team of nurses Tom would have never been able to stay home.”
Carol really appreciated the faith connection Tom’s team of nurses provided. “They respected our faith”, says Carol, “and they were also women of faith which was so comforting to us.”
For anyone contemplating whether it’s time for hospice care for a loved one, Carol has two simple words of advice, “Try it”, she encourages. “You can always stop it at any point and then restart it when you feel ready. There were so many times during Tom’s hospice care that I would think he was doing well. Then, he would have a little backslide and it was the nudge I needed to know that we were doing the right thing.”
Carol also wants to convey the message of not being afraid. “Don’t be afraid of the word hospice”, she states. There is a connotation that it’s immediate death and it’s not. This is about the person you love living out their last days the way they want to, and with dignity.
“Having the hospice team at our home really made me feel that I wasn’t alone, smiles Carol. “There was always someone there I could lean on. In Tom’s last days, I could call them when I felt overwhelmed. Sometimes when they came to the house I would slip out and get a haircut or a manicure because I knew I could trust them to take good care of Tom.”
