The Whittier Home Health Care Agency was formed in 1993. Marty Hood has been a dedicated member of the Home Health team since 1996. She started as a per diem RN and was the Clinical Director for 22 years, beginning in 1998 until 2020. The Whittier Home Health Care Agency is a Medicare-certified agency and has been Joint Commission-certified since its inception.
Marty says: “We are a traditional Home Health Care Agency serving patients aged 18 through geriatric. Most of our patients have specific medical needs; some come from surgery, require wound care, or require post-stroke support. We work with the wound clinic and the Neuro Day Program patients at Bradford Rehabilitation Hospital’s Outpatient Clinic. We provide Skilled Nursing, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and Home Health Aides when patients need help at home.”
Home Health Care helps homebound patients
According to Medicare regulations, Home Health patients need to be homebound and under the regular care of a doctor. “Generally, our Home Health Care Agency serves the medical-surgical adult geriatric population. We visit patients in their homes for a short duration when they need skilled services, usually after hospitalization. Occasionally we get a referral from a doctor’s office if the doctor notices a decline in the patient, or a skilled service that the patient needs,” says Marty.
A patient is considered homebound if it’s taxing for them to get out of their home without assistance. If insurance doesn’t cover homebound patients, the patient must go to an outpatient clinic, wound clinic, or specialized doctor’s office to receive the care they need. Marty says: “We recognize patients feel more comfortable with Whittier because of our continuum of care. When new patients are treated at the Outpatient Clinic at Bradford, they’ll encounter familiar faces, because some of Bradford’s Outpatient therapists also work at our Home Health Care Agency.”
Teaching skills to patients
To be accepted as a home health care patient, the patient must need a skilled service by a trained, licensed clinician. A skill is a task that requires nursing or therapy knowledge or some sort of training to provide that skill. Home health services are of short and intermittent duration. Once patients become stable and knowledgeable about those skills, or their wound heals, etc., we can discharge them from our services.
Marty says: “Our goal is for our patients to feel safe and knowledgeable at home. We ultimately teach patients or caregivers skills to prevent re-hospitalization. For example, a skill might include teaching patients to obtain their blood pressure, or patients with diabetes who need to learn how to administer insulin or wound care support and training.”
Doctors’ orders
We can only accept a patient with a doctor’s order, so initially, we start with physician-reported findings.
For example, a dermatologist or wound clinic physician can refer a patient who has something wrong with their skin, or is healing from surgery, and we can provide assistance with wound care and teach the patient how to care for it themselves. We accept referrals from all physicians
Our clinicians
From an infection control standpoint, our clinicians are continuously trained in CDC guidelines. Our staff of seasoned clinicians has an average of 20 years of experience.
In addition to working with patients from Whittier Rehabilitation Hospital Bradford, we also provide nursing and physical therapy to the Lakeview House. Within the Rest Home Unit, we serve patients who need nursing care such as medication injections or post-hospitalization rehabilitation services.
Whittier Home Health Care has been referred to as the “gold standard” for home health agencies in the Merrimack Valley.
Whittier Home Health Care Agency is dedicated to providing quality care and excellent patient satisfaction. “We treat our patients like family to the best of our ability within the constraints of their insurance and doctors’ orders—it’s a solid, compassionate environment to work in, with a dedicated, trained group of professionals. We are constantly striving to improve!” says Marty.
Note: as of Spring 2023 we are not accepting new patients, or hiring home health care staff.
