KYLE — Ascension Seton Hays Hospital offers a home health program for those in the community who are managing chronic illnesses with the goal of aiding their independence.
Beginning in 2014 as a joint venture between Ascension and Evolution Health from Envision Healthcare, and then, partnering with Compassus in 2020, the Kyle Ascension at Home program has only grown. Offering at-home health care services, such as skilled nursing services, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and medical social work, Kyle's Ascension at Home serves not only Hays County, but also Austin, Bastrop, Caldwell, Colorado, Fayette, Lee, Travis and Washington counties, as well.
“For a large majority of our clients, they’ve just been hospitalized and after they spend the time in the hospital, they’ve been discharged and our team goes out,” said Jordan Wojnarski, executive director of the Kyle and Bastrop branch for Ascension At Home. “You can make all the recommendations in the world [at] the hospital, but what we do in home health care is we help the patients manage their disease process in the home and so, we help them to resume their independence [at the highest level possible].”
The Ascension At Home program assists patients over the age of 18 in managing various illnesses, including some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure.
“We work with the physicians and partner with [the patient’s] primary care physicians,” said Wojnarski. “Sometimes, we utilize transitional doctors if patients don’t have their own primary care physician and we work with those physicians to develop [a] care plan for them, so that they’re able to manage those disease processes at home. Some of our episodes are as short as a couple of weeks and some patients with those chronic conditions … They don’t have any caregivers. They don’t have a way to manage that and we’ve seen some of those patients for a couple of years.”
There are differences between non-skilled home care and skilled home health care. Because the two may be confused, Wojnarski noted that some examples of non-skilled home care include cooking, cleaning and doing laundry, while skilled home health care, which is what the program provides, is working with the patients to manage their illness, through various therapies and education.
These services include nursing, therapy and medical social services that aim to improve independence through balance and mobility training, fall prevention, assessment of home situations, patient and family education and support, bathing and grooming, ambulating and transferring, oral hygiene, feeding, speech therapy, strengthening exercises and more, according to the program’s website, all of which are personalized to the client’s needs.
According to Wojnarski, approximately 60% of skilled home health referrals across the United States go unserviced.
“So, if you think about that, those are people that are in our community and we want to be able to make a difference in our community and we want to be able to service every home health referral that we get because there’s a significant amount of the population that has been underserved with care [and are] struggling at home,” said Wojnarski. “The future of healthcare is at home and so, I’m really proud of this team as we continue to grow and take care of patients in our community.”
The Kyle branch was awarded the Compassus Home Health Program of the Year for 2024. The award, which has been awarded to the Kyle program for the past four years, is based on the core values: compassion, integrity, excellence, teamwork and innovation.
“Healthcare is really, really hard in the current environment and too often, patients don’t get what they need, largely because there’s a shortage of healthcare providers and you see a lot of turnover throughout the entire industry and I’m really, really proud of this team,” said Wojnarski. “Our turnover is significantly below the national average and my vision for this team is people taking care of people and it’s creating community with my team and that’s part of the reason I’m so proud of this award is because we’ve created a community with our team.”
To learn more about the Ascension At Home program, visit www.compassus.com/services/home-health/ascension-at-home.
