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Keeping Eyes And Ears Open
All home medical equipment companies brag and sell themselves on providing “quality services.” But do they really meet their claims?
Quality is often the little things HME providers do that seem routine. Routine assessments of both the home environment and the patient's use of equipment will not only assure quality patient services but may also reduce the company's liability, should something go wrong. While such assessments can be used for all patients, they can be particularly helpful with patients undergoing various types of respiratory therapy.
Each time a representative of your HME organization goes into a patient's home, he or she should review both the environment and the patient for three important issues:
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Compliance with the most recent physician's orders
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Compliance with basic cleaning and infection control instructions/guidelines
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Compliance with basic safety instructions.
Whether it's on follow-up service visits or just during delivery of supplies, customer service technicians and respiratory therapists should be alert to changes in the patient's abilities or use of their home medical equipment. Such assessments need not be 50 questions, nor do they need to include another form that has to be completed. Technicians and therapists need only have good peripheral vision and big elephant ears to identify what is really going on in the home. In most cases, such an assessment won't even add time to the visit or slow down the day.
If a staff member does identify a non-compliance issue, the patient should be reminded and/or re-instructed. A summary of the issue and the re-instruct should then be documented in the patient's record per company policy. Such documentation is usually done on the delivery ticket, a communication log or a care plan update.
Check these examples to see how a technician or therapist can help.
Home Visit 1: A technician is delivering oxygen tanks to a patient whose oxygen prescription is for 3 liters per minute/24 hours per day. He notices that the patient is not wearing the cannula and that the oxygen concentrator is turned off. Before leaving, the technician should ask why the patient is not using the oxygen and encourage him or her to do so. The technician should remind the patient that it is important to follow the physician's orders.
