Home health agencies honored
Posted on May 09 2007

Lynchburg,VA, March 29, 2007 - Three of Lynchburg’s home health agencies have been singled out by a health care information company as being among the elite agencies of the nation’s 8,000 Medicare-certified home health agencies.

On Thursday a small group of providers met to celebrate the achievement.

“My hat goes off to all of you,” said Terri B. Lindsey, project director of the Virginia Health Quality Center. “Not in all the cities that I travel to are competitors able to really sit down together and look at the fact that we’re all here for one reason - that’s to keep our patients at home.”

Lindsey was the presenter Thursday, of HomeCare Elite recognition to Generation Solutions’ Home Health Solutions, as a top 100 agency. Also recognized as Home Care Elite, but not in the top 100, are First Dominion Home Health Care and Centra Health Home Health Services.

Home health employees work very hard at helping others, said Chris Mueller, CEO for Generation Solutions.

Their skill and dedication, he said, makes it possible for people “to live in the dignity of their own home” while working toward recovery from illness. “There is no way to measure compassion,” Mueller said.
 
The recognition of the 2006 HomeCare Elite was an inaugural event by OCS Inc., a national health care information company, and DecisionHealth, a health care industry consultant business. The recognition is based on information compiled from statistics obtained from public sources, not proprietary data.

“We’re celebrating Lynchburg - of the 8,000 in the country, three were in Lynchburg,” said Mueller.

“It’s a proud day for all of us,” said Tulane Patterson, founder of Generation Solutions, a Lynchburg company.

The celebration was held at the historic Old City Cemetery, which features the Pest House, which shows some of the early work of Patterson’s wife Claudia’s great-great grandfather, Dr. John J. Terrell.

“For our family, this is a great day,” said Patterson, who told of the Civil War doctor’s dedication that brought health to soldiers of the North and South.

Terrell developed a way to use basic cleanliness and health care in the Pest House where Civil War soldiers with infectious disease were placed. After the war, he was a Campbell County doctor who often went to his patients’ homes to provide care.

The HomeCare Elite awards recognize quality, improvement and financial status.
 
Home Health Solutions was an agency on the brink of disaster three years ago when it was purchased by Generation Solutions, which then hired Sue Irvine, an experienced nurse-administrator.

Irvine said in an interview that the Elite recognition came “out of the blue.”

“We had no idea there was research going on,” she said. “It took us about a week, looking at each other and saying this can’t be true.”

She credits the staff for the success. “I’m so proud of the folks.”

The award comes as Medicare is setting up a plan to pay for performance, said Irvine, and performance quality measures have taken on a new importance. It is estimated that around 2009, agencies that meet and exceed Medicare quality standards will get a financial bonus.

Lindsey, of the Virginia Health Quality Center, works with agencies throughout the state. VHQC is not linked to the companies that develop Home Care Elite.

“What impressed me when I did look at the list - that Lynchburg had three representatives,” said Lindsey, who challenged the three to set an example for others.

Home health care is a growing field, particularly at a time of concern about the Medicare Trust Fund.

“Patients being treated in their homes certainly is cost-effective - and where the patients want to be,” said Lindsey in an interview.

Teresa Wiley accepted the award on behalf of First Dominion.

“If you do home health, you have a special love for it,” said Wiley. “You can’t run down the hall and get everything you need, you have to take it with you. All our staff is very dedicated, and I accept this for them.
 
Susan Davidson of Centra Health said, “We say at Centra Health our mission is ‘Excellent Care Every Time’ - that’s what our people believe, and I think this is just an example of it.”

Irvine accepted the award for Generation Solutions.

“I thank God every day to be in the presence of some of the greatest people on earth and I’m very proud of every one of them.”
Lynchburg councilman Scott Garrett, M.D. was part of the presentation program. Garrett, a general surgeon, is also a student of history and lecturer on the Civil War era and earlier medicine.

Home health has come a long way since the late 1700s, he said, when U.S. President George Washington died after being given the best home health available - treatment with heavy metals, blistering solutions for his throat, a total of about 64 ounces of blood drained from his body as treatment, and given an enema and vinegar-based solution to inhale.

“State of the art home health care, Dec. 13, 1799,” said Garrett.

More than 200 years later, it’s a lot different. And today, the achievements of the three agencies, said Garrett, “is a huge deal - to be functioning and working for our citizens at this level.”