ARLINGTON, Va.--After a deadly storm that coated much of the Plains region in ice last week, the American Association for Homecare, the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services and VGM Group praised the efforts of HME providers to care for their patients.
At the height of the storm, more than a million customers in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were without power, according to news reports, and more than 280,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark as of Friday.
In several states, seniors on home oxygen were taken to warming centers or shelters because of the power outages, AAHomecare said. "But in all states, home oxygen providers had prepared for the storm and responded with extra visits and contacts with patients."
In its Wednesday newsletter, the association reported the following first-hand accounts:
--Tim Moore, a regional manager at Wilkinson Home Care Equipment in Nevada, Mo., noted that in two of the communities they serve, more than half the population was without power. "We have filled and delivered well over 100 tanks in the last three days to keep our current patients, nursing homes and some of our competitors (who had no power, but had customers in need) in a constant supply of oxygen. We have made daily runs 65 miles south to Joplin [Missouri] to ensure that our store there had enough tanks to handle the needs that might arise.
"We have made these runs regardless of weather and what might happen, because these are our customers. Just because the roads are bad, or the power is out, we still have an obligation as providers. I drove to Joplin on Sunday and delivered about 30 tanks to a nursing home without power, and to our own store. We have employees without power in their own homes, who are working to meet the [patient's] needs. We had one store without power for about 48 hours, but we had the manager stationed there in case customers came by to get tanks or supplies. These are the things that make this industry different from so many other health care entities."
--Maria J Lucas is CEO of Asthma & Respiratory Services of Oklahoma, which covers most of northeast Oklahoma and into the Oklahoma City and Enid areas. The company takes care of ventilator patients as well as oxygen patients. "I have to say our team has done a remarkable job of planning for this storm. We were hit last year with several major ice storms and we learned from that experience! We started midweek last week contacting our patients and making sure they were stocked up before the storm hit.... We have a break now in between storms, and we are again rushing to get our people covered for the next storm that is moving in on Friday. We do ground our fleet when the weather is at its worst as we do not want to have our employees in danger, but we are out again just as soon as possible."
--Family Medical Equipment in Altus, Okla., has oxygen customers in the southwest part of the state. According to the company's Josh Drake: "We used the time available prior to the storm to contact each customer who may be affected. We spent many extra hours in service calls and mileage, above our budget, to deliver extra oxygen to each patient in our service area." While Family Medical will not receive any extra reimbursements for its efforts, they note with satisfaction that, "not a single customer had a shortage of oxygen while electricity was off."
--In Hampton, Iowa, Long Term Medical Supply has seven locations serving home patients and nursing facilities, three of which were severely affected by the storms that hit Southern Iowa earlier this week. Mari Banse of the company's corporate office described one phone conversation from the week: "When I received a call from one of our store managers down in Osceola, Iowa, today sharing his feelings and stories with me about the amazing effort he was putting into his job, it almost brought me to tears.
"In the earlier hours of the morning this man started out in the pitch black, eerie town that got around three inches of rain turning into ice that took out all of the power and was taking down trees. Concerned about the safety of his patients, he began to travel from home to home to ensure that they were safe and not afraid of their lack of power and inability to get to a safe place. He shuttled people to shelters that were set up at the local hospital and casino, even going above and beyond his job description he took hot meals and blankets to elderly patients. This was an area that some streets were not even passable due to downed trees. When he couldn't get down roads he made sure that he got in contact with them somehow to make sure that they were OK just to get a cheerful response that everything was OK."
Late Friday, the National Weather Service had again issued heavy snow warnings for Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas, with up to 9 inches expected in some areas. The latest storm could hamper restoration of power or cause new outages, officials said.