SUN Home Health Services has been a regional leader in the use of Telehomecare, beginning the program over four years ago. Serving nearly 6,000 patients a year, SUN Home Health staff are making more than 50,000 home visits annually. SUN Home Health has the distinction of being the only home health agency in Central Pennsylvania that has nurses on staff in its Information and Referral Center 24-hours a day, 365 days a year.

“Other agencies come from all over the country to see our advanced clinical system called Novius, Telehomecare and the IRC process used by SUN Home,” said Steven B. Richard, COO/CFO.

Last month, SUN Home staff hosted employees of the VNA of Cincinnati who visited and toured SUN Home’s headquarters in Northumberland.

“When starting new programs, it helps to seek out other organizations that have already instituted the programs to learn from them,” said Angela Johnson of the VNA of Cincinnati. “Home health is so competitive that we do not share information. I find it helpful to sit down with others in the same field and just share what is working and what is not. We really don’t have to recreate the wheel.”

She added that VNA’s visit to SUN Home was beneficial because “we were able to see telehealth being used. The technology is impressive, but even more impressive when seen used on a live patient. Also, we were able to gain insight into how to implement and confirmation that we were on the right track. That in itself is comforting.”

In the last few years, SUN Home has also hosted staff from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Erie, Virtua Hospital Home Health in New Jersey, St. Agnes Hospital in Wisconsin, and Lee Memorial Hospital Home Health in Florida.

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SUN Home Participates in Study—Seeking to use emerging technologies to increase the quality of patient care, SUN Home Health Services has been chosen as one of eight Pennsylvania homecare agencies partnering in a research project to determine how telehealth empowers elders to take a more active role in their own healthcare.

“Our agency implemented a telehealth program because we believe it helps patients play a greater role in their own healthcare,” said Donna Jenkins, director of Home Health at SUN Home. “We believe this technology creates a better quality of life for our patients and this research will help us show if that is the case.”

Pennsylvania State University (in partnership with the Pennsylvania Homecare Association) has been awarded a $475,000 grant to research how telehealth empowers elderly patients to take a more active role in their healthcare. Telehealth is a telecommunications technology that monitors patients’ vital signs in their own homes and transmits that data to a homecare agency over their phone lines. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded the grant through its Health e-Technologies Initiative national program. Kathryn Dansky, Ph.D., associate professor of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State University, is the principal investigator of the study.

According to Dansky, the study will compare two different technologies and investigate how each influences patients’ knowledge of their conditions, their ability to manage their disease and health outcomes such as hospitalizations.

SUN Home Health will kick off the study on or around March 1. The Telehomecare program at SUN Home began in 2000 and uses video technology to conduct a remote visit where both nurse and patient see each other live, and in real time.

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To make a referral to SUN Home Hospice or SUN Home Health Services, please call the SUNcare Health Information & Referral Center:
1-888-478-6227

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Golf Tournament Planned—The Helen Keithline Memorial Tournament benefiting SUN Home Health Services will be held Wednesday, July 14, 2004, at the Susquehanna Valley Country Club.

Registration begins at noon, with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. The Registration Fee Package includes dinner, greens fees, cart and awards.

Sponsorship includes the following:

• Platinum Sponsor - $1,000 (includes package for 4 players)
• Gold Sponsor - $750 (includes package for 4 players)
• Silver Sponsor - $500 (includes package for 4 players)
• Hole Sponsor - $150 (sign only)
• Individual Player - $100

The event will include a Beat the Pro contest, Mulligans, Raffle, Hole-in-One and the option to play at forward tee. The registration deadline for the event is July 7.

For more information or to register, call 570-473-7656 or 570-473-7669.

To make a referral, call 1-888-478-6227.