NELC & Newton-Wellesley Hospital Patient Story
As we look to fulfill our mission, vision and goals to delight our members and patients, recently NELC received feedback about a tremendous story of delighting our long-time member, Newton Wellesley Hospital (NWH); a story that resulted in sending a patient home sooner than anticipated.?
Many times, care coordination teams are faced with discharges happening late in the day. Coordination of medication orders, support services, insurance coverage and delivery of supplies can certainly become challenging.?Recently Megan LaJoie, NELC Clinical Nurse Liaison, received a call at 4:30pm on a Friday for a referral of a patient requiring 2 weeks of IV ceftriaxone via midline.?Unfortunately, the hospital IV Access team was not available to place a midline until Monday leaving the patient in the hospital for two additional days.?While frustrating for the patient and care coordination team, this situation is experienced all too often when needing PICC or midline access.?Imagine two additional days in the hospital for a simple infusion; there had to be a better way!
After reviewing the medication orders with the provider, Megan reached out to NELC’s Vascular Access team leader, Janet Henry, to learn that she was available to place the line on Sunday.?They quickly informed NWH’s care coordination team and began the onboard process with our NELC Intake team. By Saturday morning, the patient received their first dose of medication and was discharged to home where the midline and second dose of medication was administered Sunday by the NELC vascular access nurse.?Kudos to the amazing collaboration of the Care Coordination and NELC teams who quickly turned a patient experience from an additional two-day hospital stay to a weekend in the comfort of their own home.
So, what does NWH have to say?
“This is a great example of NELC being able to support one of our patients in the home- facilitating an early discharge.?Without their assistance, the patient would have stayed until Monday.”,?states Jennie Wright, Director of Population Health and Care Continuum.?
Joan Donahue, RN Case Manager, shares, “Megan is ALWAYS thinking outside the box and doing what is in the best interest of the patient.?She and NELC are invaluable members of our team!”
Together we are working collaboratively making outstanding contributions to transform the care continuum to support our mission, vision, member hospital partnership, and most importantly our patients! Our teamwork is making a positive and immeasurable impact in the lives of those we care for everyday!
Just One More great story!