Beyond Numbers

At AAHomecare’s Washington Leadership Conference last month, it was all about the numbers. In every Capitol Hill meeting, discussion centered on the value of home care. Members of Congress and their aides want the math. They want to see down on paper exactly how much home care can save.

As taxpayers, we should support the government’s efforts to get control of the nation’s careening health care costs. And we should all be grateful to those in this industry who are working to quantify the cost-effective solution that home care offers. But as I sat through the talks about federal budgets and providers’ bottom lines, I couldn’t help thinking about a letter I received from Joe Ticer, regional vice president of Graham-Field Health Products’ HomeCare Division, just a few days before the conference:

Over the past two decades, I have been involved in the business/manufacturing side of the home care industry, working in sales, management and marketing for top manufacturers and distributors. While I felt that I understood the personal significance and importance of “home health care,” a recent experience brought new meaning to the words.

As a sales professional, quotas for product sales have always been commonplace. A few hundred home care beds and wheelchairs, with several hundred walkers, commodes, rollators and crutches, all added up to a dollar figure [measured by] the plaques on my office wall for Salesman of the Year.

However, my whole perspective changed on May 22 when I received the call to come home. My father’s cancer had finally progressed to the point that [we knew] would come, and my mother needed help with the final days. Our family rallied together as my father, a man with two doctoral degrees, a board-certified radiologist in veterinary medicine, someone who knew the prognosis better than most people, spoke these words to his only daughter, a registered RN: “Young lady, your patient is very sick.”

[As the days progressed], his last shower was a comical affair with his daughter, wife and me attempting to get him on a bath bench in a non-accessible shower. The shower hose was taken away with one last act of defiance and promptly soaked all parties present — unintentionally, we’re sure! But the defining moment that validates the entire scope of the home care industry came toward the end of that week. His last full sentence, while looking into my mother’s eyes, who was kneeling at his bedside, was simply, “I love you.”

This moment could not have been guaranteed around visitation schedules or regular hours. It came at a time that could only be assured with him at home, surrounded by a family providing their last full measure of love and support to a loving father and husband. He made us promise that he would not be allowed to die in a hospital but rather on the farm he had so carefully built and managed in his retirement years, set in the rural hills outside of Roseburg, Oregon.

This is the enduring grace that is a result of all the efforts of manufacturers, providers, funding agencies and medical professionals who are involved with home care issues. It is the simple act of hearing a treasured loved one say “I love you” one last time in a place that brings comfort and peace — that place is called “home.”

Dr. Ticer, my father, passed away on June 2, 2005, at age 71.

The touch of a familiar hand. Shared laughter. A good morning kiss or, as Joe Ticer’s letter so eloquently states, a final good-bye. These are the things that represent the true value of home care — and they will never show up in a number on any balance sheet, the government’s or otherwise.