Care transition coaches introduced at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center
The newly formed Care Transition Team at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center will assist heart failure patients successfully transition from hospital to home in a 4-week program.
Left to right: Annette O’Tuel, Brendan Burns, Rebecca Van-Derpoel, and Lynn Hall.
A newly formed Care Transition program at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center will pair heart failure patients with a coach – free of charge – to transition them from the hospital to home for one month.
The Care Transition Team will pair a Care Transition Coach with a patient while they are still in the hospital, and follow them for a 4-week program. Those patients with complex care needs and family caregivers receive specific tools and work with their CTI coach to learn self-management skills that will ensure their needs are met during the transition from hospital to home.
The Care Transition Team at Carolina Pines includes: Annette O’Tuel, RN, Cardiac Rehabilitation; Brendan Burns, Exercise Physiologist for the CPRMC Cardiac Rehabilitation; Rebecca W. Van-Derpoel, RCP, RRT, Director of Cardiopulmonary, Speech Therapy & Sleep Services; and Lynn Hall, RN, Cardiac Rehabilitation.
“I am excited for the new Care Transition program,” Burns said. “It is a great new program for the hospital and the community. Other communities have implemented the program and have seen up to a 50 percent reduction in hospital readmission rates.”
Studies have proven that patients who received this program were significantly less likely to be re-admitted to the hospital, and the benefits were sustained for five months after the end of the one-month intervention. Thus, rather than simply managing post-hospital care in a reactive manner, imparting self-management skills pays dividends long after the program ends.
“As a Care Transition Coach, I am excited to be a part of a program that will help patients learn to manage their healthcare more effectively in order to gain a better quality of life.” O’Tuel said.
For more information about the program, contact Brendan Burns at: 843-339-4797.
