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Home Health

When You Need Healthcare at Home

We know you are looking forward to going home. After all, home is a familiar environment, and family and friends are close at hand to participate in a more direct role in your care. We recognize how important this can be to your recovery process.

In fact, we even begin before you leave the hospital. We will contact your insurance carrier to assist you in determining your coverage, and pre-authorize treatment, if possible. Our discharge planning nurse or home care coordinator works closely with your doctor to develop a treatment plan specifically designed for you.

Once you are home, we do individualized training with both you and your family to ensure that your treatment is properly administered. Depending on your needs, our nurses will coordinate the support of other services and treatments including medical social workers, physical and occupational therapists, speech pathologists, pharmacists, and homemaker/nursing attendant services.

Licensed, Experienced Care

Founded in 1983, Torrance Memorial Home Health & Hospice is a full-service, California-licensed and Medicare-certified home healthcare and hospice agency that serves the entire South Bay area of Los Angeles. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Torrance Memorial Medical Center is also accredited by the Joint Commission.

At Torrance Memorial Home Health & Hospice, we are dedicated to representing the physician in the home environment by providing high-quality, cost-effective medical and nursing care.

As a full-service agency, we maintain a complete field staff of registered nurses and volunteers who provide warm, caring treatment on an individualized basis. All of these professionals have many years of nursing experience, and many have specialized nursing certificates.

Our home healthcare team also includes:

• Home Health Nurses - RNs
• Medical Social Workers
• Physical Therapists
• Occupational and Speech Therapists
• Certified Home Health Aides
• Hospital and Home Care Coordinators
• Wound Care Specialists
• Enterostomal Therapists

Our goal is to provide you, the patient, with the security of knowing that all of your healthcare needs will be met 24 hours a day. We provide physicians with the same assurance that you are receiving the best home care possible.

So, all you need to do...is head home.

Our Services

• 24-hour on-call RN for questions/answers
• Customized pharmacy services
• Supplies and equipment delivered to your home
• Assistance with insurance paperwork
• Case Management
• Skilled Nursing
• Hospital Discharge Planning
• IV Therapy
• Hospice Care
• Psychological Support Groups

Helping Patients Stay Independent

Torrance Memorial Medical Center's team of home health professionals provide compassionate care while helping each patient achieve the highest level of independence with daily living activities. Patients receiving services from Torrance Memorial's home healthcare department are evaluated by a registered nurse or a physical therapist to the degree in which the patient can care for himself and his physical surroundings. As a patient's abilities increase, the improvements are quantified, reported, then compared with the same data from other home healthcare agencies.

These comparative reports offer an opportunity to evaluate the work that home healthcare organizations perform as they assist patients maintain or recover their independence.

Recent reports measuring improvement in patient independence have shown that Torrance Memorial's home healthcare service has a remarkable record of helping patients restore their activities of daily living.

Highlights from a recent study, conducted by the Strategic Health Care Programs, Santa Barbara, the OASIS Comparative Outcomes Report, Torrance Memorial's home healthcare outcomes included:

• The average age of a home healthcare patient at Torrance Memorial is 75, with 80 percent of these patients living in their own home, instead of a family member's home or board and care facility.
• The comparison group had an average age of 73 with 75 percent of these patients residing in their own home and 14 percent residing in a family member's home. Nine percent of these patients residing in a board and care home.
• Surprisingly, Torrance Memorial home care patients required an average of only 30 days of care, while the reference group required an average of 71 days.
• Torrance Memorial home healthcare patients showed an improvement in the activities of daily living that surpassed the reference group. Torrance Memorial did dramatically better in the improvements of dyspnea (breathing), light meal preparation, feeding, toileting, bathing, grooming, dressing and showed improvements in behavior and cognitive functioning.

In another 2000 report, prepared by the federal government and contrasting Torrance Memorial's services to agencies across the United States, Torrance Memorial fared significantly better than reference groups in their ability to assist patients to improve functions such as dressing, bathing, toileting, transferring, walking and eating.

Our Special Programs

We realize that many patients may have unique needs that require more than the traditional home healthcare services. Because of this, we have developed a series of special programs which incorporate some of the latest technology that is available outside the traditional hospital setting. These include:

The Cardiac Care Programs

Two specialized programs are tailored specifically for the benefit of cardiac patients.

Our first program includes a team of specially trained registered nurses to monitor patients with congestive heart failure. Our goal is to educate the patient and caregiver in healthy ways to stabilize symptoms and prevent hospitalization to the greatest extent possible. Working with the patient's physician, the nurse closely monitors the patient for signs and symptoms of disease progression and plans interventions, which help the patient to function at the highest level.

Our second program is specifically designed to meet the needs of patients with end-stage cardiac disease. Staffed by a variety of specialists with considerable experience in high-risk cardiac care, this program involves the administration of intravenous cardiac drugs, which provide palliative home support for patients who would otherwise be confined to the hospital.

The Oncology Program

With more than 15 years of experience working with oncology patients, we are considered a leader in the field of home infusion oncology therapy. Our oncology program offers a full spectrum of services and therapies that are administered in the home. Additional IV therapies, ranging from total parenteral nutrition to pain management are also available. These are complemented by a variety of services that include everything from skilled nursing to patient instruction. We also supply all the equipment necessary to meet the specialized needs of the cancer patient.

Home Medical Equipment

A leader in the field of home care and hospice, Torrance Memorial Home Health & Hospice offers a full array of durable medical equipment and supplies. We respond to your needs quickly and efficiently, and we can also tailor orders to meet specific requests. Although the equipment and supplies listed below are covered by most insurance plans, orders do require a physician's prescription.

• Hospital Beds
• Wheelchairs
• Walkers
• Commodes
• Oxygen Equipment
• Diabetic Glucose Meters
• Diabetic Glucose Monitoring Strips

If you have any questions please call our offices at 310/ 784-3739.

How Patients Rate Us

At Torrance Memorial Home Health, we regularly survey patients to find out how patients experience our services and what we need to do to keep improving our care. Patients are asked to respond to questions that rate the service they received from their healthcare team on a five-point scale: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree and Strongly Agree.

Results Summary of 2006 Patient Satisfaction Survey

Q1. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the nurse

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Q2. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the physical therapist

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Q3. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the occupational therapist

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Q4. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the speech therapist

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Q5. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the social worker

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Q6. I was satisfied with the care I received at home from the certified home health aide

Strongly				Strongly
Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Agree
0%	25%	50%	75%	100%

Patients are also asked to respond to questions on a five-point scale: very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor.

Q1. Overall quality of care and services

Very				Very
Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Good
1	2	3	4	5

Q2. Likelihood of recommending the home care agency to family and friends

Very				Very
Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Good
1	2	3	4	5

Q3. Met your needs and expectations

Very				Very
Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Good
1	2	3	4	5

Q4. Assisted you with pain control if needed

Very				Very
Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Good
1	2	3	4	5

Q5. Was respectful and courteous in your home

Very				Very
Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Good
1	2	3	4	5

More on the Survey Methodology
100% of all patients are surveyed by a written questionnaire sent to their home after discharge.

How South Bay Residents Rank Hospitals with Home Care

In 2006, the National Research Corporation conducted a nationally syndicated survey of healthcare attitudes and experiences. The following results represent a response from 345 randomly selected South Bay residents.

For most preferred for Best Home Health Care, Torrance Memorial was ranked #1 by the most respondents, or 44% of those surveyed.