When the Brownfield Regional Medical Center’s Board of Directors met Monday evening, there were several items on the agenda including hearing an update regarding BRMC’s home health division.
Starla Sessums is the Director of BRMC’s Home Health Department, and she several bits of good news regarding the program.
One bit of bad news for the program occurred when Sessums announced Shirley Cox Friday, a BRMC home health employee, had died Sept. 18. She said Cox would be greatly missed by both patients and staff. Sessums said the program got many referrals due to Cox, who was consistently being requested.
“We are going to miss her,” Sessums said.
Sessums then informed board members that patients have a choice regarding what home health provider they want, and only doctors can refer individuals to be involved in the program.
Sessums then gave a report regarding referral sources and where they were coming from Lubbock’s Covenant Health. She also said the current census for the home health department stands at 53 patients. The census for those being provided service by a caregiver (cook, clean, bathe and errands) stands at 39.
She also said a Medicaid survey was conducted in January (happens every three years) and said there was no deficiencies reported.
The home health program was also part of a patient survey conducted by an outside source and BRMC scored at the top rungs of the statistics, scoring higher than many of the surrounding programs.
Categories included items such as ease of scheduling visits, nurses concern for privacy, concern for safety as well as nurse’s sensitivity to challenges.
“These are actually the patients grading us on all of these areas,” Sessums said.
