FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is Home Health Care?

Home Health Care (HHC) comprises wide range of continued medical services rendered to the chronically ill patients at their own home, in order to keep them in stable condition and to help them to recuperate consistently. Continued clinical and supportive care of patients at home accelerates recuperation, ensures rehabilitation process, and improves quality of life of the patient. Home Healthcare Services, thus bring professional medical care to the doorsteps of the patients, managing their health on their behalf cost-effectively and conveniently.

Home Healthcare Providing Medical Organizations render Home Healthcare services to the patients at home. Home-Healthcare service providers are professional medical organizations with extensive resources including highly skilled medical personnel, administrative and management team and social workers. Complementing institutional care, Home Healthcare Providers bring cohesion in patient management and ensure better clinical outcome.

In our country there was no such organization to provide professional medical care to the chronically ill patients at home in order to maintain consistency of care for achieving optimal health outcome. Absence of cohesion in medical care causes unnecessary suffering to the patients, frequent hospitalization, and often leads to premature death.

Lifeline Healthcare, first time in Bangladesh, has been providing comprehensive Home-Healthcare Services to the patients at home. Since it’s inception in 2003, Lifeline Healthcare has been developing these services consistently by fine-tuning the programs and its operations in order to maintain high quality of services and professionalism. In doing so, we already have developed significant infrastructure and manpower to meet increasing demands for such services.

We thus can extend a comprehensive suite of programs and services seamlessly integrated to achieve optimal health outcomes, beyond hospital settings, to the patient’s own doorstep

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2. What services does Lifeline Healthcare provide?

Lifeline Healthcare, first time in Bangladesh, has been providing comprehensive Home-Healthcare Services to the patients at home. Since its inception in 2003, Lifeline Healthcare has been developing these services consistently by fine-tuning the programs and its operations in order to maintain high quality of services and professionalism. We extend a comprehensive suite of programs and services seamlessly integrated to achieve optimal health outcomes, beyond hospital settings, to the patient’s own doorstep.

In order to cater almost any requirement of clinical care at home, to maintain continuity and cohesion in treatment, Lifeline Healthcare developed multitude of service systems.

These are:

1. Case Management Services: This is comprehensive clinical care provided to chronically ill patients after their discharge from hospital. It is intended to keep their ailments under control in a stable condition while patient is at home, and to reduce frequency of hospitalization. This is achieved by continuing institutional level of supervision and care to the patient at home. Under this plan we designate an experienced physician to act as Case Manager for the patient. He acts as the health manager of the patient, and plays keystone role by coordinating the care provided by an increasing number of disparate specialists and technicians, each of whom is concerned with only a single aspect of an individual’s overall medical condition. As a keystone, a Case Manager oversees these interactions professionally and ties them together as cost-effectively as possible, just as a keystone unites and caps the sides of a structure. He also acts as their health advocate, and protects the patient from medical malpractices and overcharges by medical caregivers.

2. “Visiting Nursing Service”: This is to provide skilled nursing care to the patients at home continuously or intermittently. This is supervised by doctors. Some of skilled nursing services provided are:

• Assessment and Evaluation

• Disease Management

• Wound Management

• Enterostomal Therapy

• Care and Maintenance of Urinary Catheters

• Venipuncture and IV Antibiotics, Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN),
enteral nutrition- hydration, chemotherapy, pain management, immune
ulin therapy.

• Respiratory medications including nebulization, tracheostomy
management, etc.

• Administration of Intravenous, Intramuscular, and Subcutaneous
Medications

• Care of Central Lines

• Patient and Family Education

-	Medication Administration
-	Disease Process Management
-	Diet Management

3. “Doctors-On-Call” Service: This is to provide clinical support to patient by physicians visiting patient’s home and giving required treatment and advice. In case of long term case management, doctor will provide the patient and relatives required guidance and will help to arrange and coordinate required services.

4. Aya/Word boy and auxiliary medical staff support: This is provided to bed-ridden, immobilized patients to maintain patient’s personal hygiene requirements, feeding, toileting, cleaning etc. This is part of Home Support Services to help a patient to take care of himself without being dependant on others.

5. Physiotherapy and other Rehabilitation Services: This is to help patient to recover from disabling conditions, like stroke, cardiac surgery etc. These include:

		• Complete physical assessment of the patient and the patient's environment.
		• The establishment of an individualized plan of treatment with input from the patient and the patient's caregivers.
		• Individualized training and instruction to patients and the caregivers.
		• A complete range of therapeutic exercises which are individualized to meet the particular needs of specific patients.
		• Speech-language therapy to patients with speech problems.
		• Counseling of patient with emotional lability.

6. Pathological support: This includes specimen collection at home for laboratory tests.

7. Ambulance Service: This is to transfer patients to and from the hospital, whenever required, under medical supervision, in our specially equipped 24-hour Emergency Medical Services’ Ambulance with basic life-support capability.

8. Medical Counseling Service: This includes Health education, developing health awareness, seeking patent compliance and his own involvement, motivating to maintain personal hygiene requirement, etc. This creates “health-empowered community” consisting of “informed patients”.

9. Medical Social work: Medical Social Work staffs assist patients in planning advanced directives, connecting patients to community service programs such as medication assistance programs, vaccination program etc. They also protect patients from medical malpractices and overcharges by other medical-caregivers.

10. Quality Management Program: Lifeline Healthcare Limited uses a variety of tools and processes to monitor many different indicators measuring the quality of the care that we provide. Patient outcomes and program outcomes are reported regularly to our Board of Directors and Medical Advisory Committee.

11. Home Medical Equipment and Logistics Support: This is to provide medical equipments and appliances to render required care to the patient at home, including oxygen cylinder with flow-meter, patient bed, nebulizer, glucometer, suction machine etc.

12. Nutritional Service Program: provides an unparalleled combination of nutritional education, and clinical follow up. Clinically, the program goal is to maintain weight and lean body mass as we promote appropriate growth or transition from Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) or Enteral feeding. Full time Registered Dietitians available for phone consultations and home visits related to nutrition support. Services include registered dietitian nutrition assessment when services begin and individualized schedule for follow-up throughout patient's care.

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3. When do you need HHC services?

You may need home-healthcare services if you require assistance;

• When someone is less able to care for himself, as he gets older; Home
support service may provide him help to live independently and maintain
better quality of life. Home-Healthcare provider takes away burden of caring
such a person from relatives and allows them to continue routines of their
own life.

• When someone have a disability and need assistance for maintaining daily
routines.

• When someone is recovering from an illness, surgery or a hospital stay and
need continued medical care at home for follow-up clinical management.
Services like “Doctors-On-Call”,“Visiting Nursing Service” and other skilled
clinical care may help.

• When someone is living with a chronic illness, which needs continued clinical
support and monitoring by medical personnel in order to maintain consistency
of care. Comprehensive Case Management involving multitude of medical
personnel may ensure stable condition, prevent life-threatening complications,
reduce frequency of visits to hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices.

• When someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness, requiring
multidisciplinary clinical and nursing support to alleviate suffering and
to avoid frequent hospitalization with life-threatening complications.

• When someone may simply need occasional assistance like giving
intravenous injections, infusion, chemotherapy, blood transfusion, wound
management with sterile dressing, collection of specimen for pathological
tests, etc.

4. Is your patient a candidate for Home Health Care?

Think your patient may need home health care? Use the Lifeline Healthcare assessment checklist to help determine if he/she is a candidate.

5. Why are people choosing Home Healthcare?

People are choosing Home-Healthcare Services because:

	1.	*It is convenient.* Patient can be treated at the convenience of their own home, allowing the patient to remain in close contact with family and friends. Recuperating in familiar surroundings enhances a patient’s quality of life and improves convalescence and recovery. This also brings great relief to family members and friends by freeing them from full-time engagement with the patient, and allowing them to continue daily routines of their own life.
	2.	*It is cheaper.* Home-Healthcare Services dramatically lower medical expenses by reducing or completely eliminating frequent and prolonged stays in hospitals and clinics. Only for any interventional treatment or investigation procedures, patient may need hospitalization.
	3.	*It is effective.* Home- Healthcare Services deliver wide range of clinical and supportive care to the patient in order to maintain patient’s health in stable condition by constant monitoring and supervision according to customized plan of management to meet specific requirement. Home-Healthcare Providing Organizations are professional medical care-givers with extensive clinical and supportive resource personnel as well as managerial and administrative capabilities. Therefore, patient’s condition is managed professionally and effectively in comparison to that, done by family members own limited resources and ability.
	4.	*It ensures continuity of clinical care,* by complementing institutional services, and brings about better clinical outcome for the patient.
	5.	*It makes medical care more accessible*, by reducing cost and also by taking away from family members the huge burden of caring a chronically ill patient. In most cases medical care is inaccessible, due to financial cost involved and also due to longtime involvement of patient’s relatives in care-giving, which disrupts routines of their own life.
	6.	*It acts as your Health-Manager,* and plays *keystone role* by coordinating the care provided by an increasing number of disparate specialists and technicians, each of whom is concerned with only a single aspect of an individual’s overall medical condition. As a keystone, Home-Healthcare Service Providers oversee these interactions professionally and ties them together as cost-effectively as possible, just as a keystone unites and caps the sides of a structure.
	7.	*It also acts as your Health-Advocate*, and protects patient from medical malpractices and overcharges by medical caregivers.

6. How do you get required service?

You may contact our 24-hour control room PABX telephone number 58155550-2 at any time and talk to a doctor about your patient’s condition. Normally he will then visit your patient at an appointed time to make accurate assessment about her clinical and other requirements. The doctor will then customize a cost-effective plan of management along with you in order to maintain continuity of treatment at home. You may even contact us while the patient is in hospital so that necessary arrangements could have been done before shifting the patient at home. We may start part of the services, if necessary, even in hospital, and to be continued at home.