HME Steps Up

Hurricane Katrina illustrated how integral home care is to the lives of many families. A tragic photo on the front page of The New York Times showed a home care patient in New Orleans who died when his oxygen ran out. Unfortunately, stories like this were all too common in the aftermath of the storm.

In response to the disaster, home care providers and manufacturers, along with other health care professionals, scrambled to deal with the immense logistical problems that spread across Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. One member set up a distribution center in a parking lot in a stricken area, giving away home care supplies to those who needed them.

AAHomecare also reached out to the affected state associations, CMS, the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the hours following the hurricane.

The disaster has underscored the reality that home care is not just a part of the nation’s health care infrastructure. Home care also is an important part of the nation’s first-responder network in large-scale emergencies. Home care plays a role in homeland security as well as health care.

More often, home care delivers a form of security to patients and families on a smaller scale that spans many dimensions.

The different facets of home care today are like a long hall of mirrors: No matter where you look, the many angles, perceptions, layers and depths provide thousands of different images of our work and our services. It is a picture of the integral role we play in delivering the promise of dignity, compassion and care for Americans every day. What they all have in common is the unique and very personal home care setting that is infused with care.

Home care therapies, services and equipment touch millions of lives every year. Patients — young and old alike — face their own, and very different, sets of health care challenges. From diabetes to cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, congenital abnormalities and other chronic diseases and medical challenges, our nation’s home care network delivers patient-preferred, clinically proven and cost-effective care.

The home care community is diverse and serves a range of populations and needs — older Americans with chronic diseases, younger adults with medical conditions requiring care, and children. The June cover story in this magazine documented how providers of pediatric home care services and equipment have established a strong and critically important role as “patient advocates, product gurus, reimbursement magicians and educators in solving children’s problems.”

We also address care needs at the very end of life. More than 50 years ago, a dying patient spoke to his caregiver with the words, “I only want what is in your mind and in your heart.” From these words was born today’s modern hospice care philosophy: the need for the friendship of the heart with compassion, acceptance, reciprocity — and competent medical care — that transcends all sectors of the home care community.

The common thread is personal care delivered in the home. We give our patients a quality of life in their own homes because we understand the demands that life brings to each family, and we understand the essential role that HME plays. Health care challenges in this country will naturally continue to grow. But our ability to step up and do what we do best for the greater good must also grow to meet those challenges.

Kay Cox is president and CEO of the American Association for Homecare, Alexandria, Va. For more information about AAHomecare, visit www.aahomecare.org, or call 703/836-6263.