We need to step up our game!

Lexxy500 · Mar 31, 2016

I work at a small Public Health agency. We do mostly home health. We also have staff that do WIC, Maternal Health, HOPES visits with families. Some of our nurses have been trained to apply dental sealants to teeth when a child needs that to be done at their visit. Let's see...we have Social Workers. One of them works with Case Management of the elderly. The other Social Worker works more with children and their families. We do a variety of different things. Seems to me that every day is different which is one reason that I do love my job. But with so many changes in health care coming in to play, I am getting worried about what OTHER services we can offer our clients if the ones I've listed above get cut - some of them are state grant programs - here today, gone tomorrow. So I have been wondering about what other home health or pubic health agencies offer to their clients. I wondered if any of you have had luck with starting a Palliative Care program? We used to do Hospice but got out of that a few years ago when some larger Hospice agencies swooned into our area. We couldn't compete. So Palliative Care may be an area that we could get into...we take care of a lot of chronically ill clients. I was also thinking about trying to get more referrals on mental health clients. My fear with with the changes from the Managed Care Organizations and Value Based Purchasing coming SOON (right now we're one of the 9 pilot states, so we're the guinea pigs I guess). Never been one to embrace change BUT times are changing and there are going to be new ways to provide care. Can anyone give me some ideas of new programs you have implemented in your agency? Even something like adding a certified wound care nurse to your staff. I need ideas of things that are easy to implement - and that DON'T cost a fortune. I work for the county so money is alllllllways an issue. Gotta come up with some ideas that won't break us. Holistic nursing? Is that something people are doing??? Any ideas...suggestions...I read a lot of these forums and I know there are some super amazing people out there that always seem to offer up some great ideas!!! Any thoughts?