What is Behavioral Health Home Care?
The Behavioral Health Home Care program assists patients and families who are broken and wounded by mental illness to move toward wholeness.
The Behavioral Health Care program is a holistic approach to care, using standardized assessment tools that allow for a collaborative approach between you, your physician, and Home Healthcare, Hospice & Community Services as the home care provider. The program increases compliance with medication and medical follow-up, and decreases hospitalizations as well as emergency calls to physicians.
Services Provided
Services are provided by specially trained nurses and occupational therapists who help with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities for Daily Living (IADLs).
Services include:
- Comprehensive assessment and individualized treatment planning
- Medication management and education
- Individual and family supportive psychotherapy
- Blood level monitoring of psychotropic medications
- Linkage to community resources
- Behavior management
- Education about the disease process
- Family education
- 24 hour telephone support
Behavioral Health Home Care Goals:
- Transition patients from acute levels of care to home and community
- Increase medication and treatment compliance
- Improve client’s functional ability
- Decrease symptoms
- Increase client’s quality of life and overall health management
- Improve client’s knowledge about medications, staying well, their illness, relapse prevention, and community resources
- Decrease hospitalization and emergency services utilization
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Frequently Asked Questions
The Behavioral Health Home Care program assists patients and families who are broken and wounded by mental illness to move toward wholeness.
The Behavioral Health Care program is a holistic approach to care, using standardized assessment tools that allow for a collaborative approach between you, your physician, and Home Healthcare, Hospice & Community Services as the home care provider. The program increases compliance with medication and medical follow-up, and decreases hospitalizations as well as emergency calls to physicians.
When making a referral, please note that the client must be homebound or psychiatrically homebound. If a client is unable to consistently and independently access psychiatric follow-up, they may be considered homebound. The following behaviors and conditions demonstrate that the patient may be psychiatrically homebound:
- Impaired reality
- Disoriented
- Confused
- Impaired judgment
- Agoraphobic
- Depressed
- Anxious
- Uses assistive device (cane, walker)
- Limited endurance related to medical diagnosis
- Leaving home requires taxing effort
Admission Criteria:
- Client must have a primary psychiatric diagnosis, or a medical and psychiatric diagnosis
- Client must be under care of a physician
- Client must require the skills of a behavioral health nurse
Who should be referred for services?
- Newly diagnosed adults with a psychiatric diagnosis
- Clients on new psychotropic medication
- Clients who have difficulty connecting to traditional mental health services
- Clients who have issues with medication compliance
- Clients who have difficulty leaving their home
- Clients who are frequently hospitalized with psychiatric diagnosis
- Clients with depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, dementia, or Alzheimer’s disease
- Clients whose behavior poses a risk to self or others
- Clients who are actively using drugs/alcohol and are not engaged in substance abuse treatment
- Clients who are actively suicidal