During a family reunion in the Catskills, a member of the party suffered an aneurysm.
Suddenly, she was a patient at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, a Level 1 Trauma Center that serves a seven-county area and often beyond.
Out-of-state family members would accompany their relative to Westchester for an extended vigil that saw them far from home and its necessities.
They needed everyday clothing, not the hiking gear they arrived in. They needed to fill their own prescriptions and find places to sleep. And they needed comfort.
Patricia Boyce, the medical center”™s director of caregiver services, said the needs of this family ”“ and others who arrive in the midst of a loved one”™s medical crisis ”“ are already being met with their top service: “supportive listening” during the sudden upheaval.
“If a family member is ill, the whole family is ill,” Boyce said.
Caregiver services, she said, “let them know they”™re not alone in this.”
And the services already offered will soon be expanded and formalized with the launch of the Caregiver Center, a 2014 project expected to break ground this quarter.
It will be a physical space in which patients”™ families and friends can access a wide range of services. Internet access, bus schedules, discounts to area restaurants, directions to local services (banks, pharmacies, hair salons), a spa-style shower on site or sessions including aromatherapy are just a few of the amenities. When the need is there, the center will also help caregivers connect with a member of the clergy or a notary.
Boyce said that right now, these caregiver services are being offered as a pilot program to select departments, such as the Burn Center.
Addressing the varied needs of caregivers starts from their first step into the medical center.
“It”™s important that we meet and introduce (ourselves) at the very beginning,” Boyce said, adding that the medical center”™s reach serves well over 100,000 adults and children each year.
“With those admissions we have a percentage of caregivers who get a call in the middle of the night,” Boyce said. “They grab their keys and cell phones in the middle of the night and come to Valhalla.”
The lobby offers an immediate introduction to the caregiver services.
“When you walk into the hospital, you walk into the Caregiver Center,” Boyce said. Plans are to formalize that lobby space”™s dual purpose and create a true center adjacent to the lobby.
“What we will have is a comfortable seating area,” Boyce said, with afternoon tea and other snacks to be served. “It”™s going to be a haven, a comfortable open living room.”
Additional space will accommodate everything from aromatherapy to massage, Reiki to reflexology to pet therapy. There will also be an area dedicated for computer use, library services and meetings or educational sessions.
Boyce said the center started to come together back in 2012 when Anne Tarpey, service excellence officer, and Kara Bennorth, senior vice president of corporate communications and fund development, began discussing the best way to address the growing and diverse needs of caregivers.
The program, Boyce said, has 15 caregiver partners. She stressed these are trained volunteers, “at a level of maturity,” who have not had a personal loss themselves within the past year. The current lineup includes retired social workers and law-enforcement personnel, health-care administrators and community firefighters and family members of physicians and staffers.
The center, which will be supported by a combination of funding (hospital, donor and grants), will also address the needs of professional caregivers on staff.
Another goal is to help lower the readmission rate, Boyce added. When a patient goes home and a caregiver knows more about how to best help them, the recovery can be smoother.
It”™s all part of the same goal.
“Whatever needs they have, we help them,” Boyce said. “We”™re going to shepherd the family from the moment they come in here until the moment they leave.”
