Program helps patients monitor health at home – Rolla, MO – The Rolla Daily News
Robin Swarnes has a lot of stories about Telehealth residing under her nurse’s cap. Swarnes is a nurse at Home Health, and Telehealth is the new piece of equipment, a remote system, that Home Health uses to monitor homebound patients.
Take the story of the “young, 60-year-old woman” diagnosed with an “end-stage lung disease.” She lived alone and wanted to manage the disease from her home as long as she could. No hospitals for her, ‘thank you very much.’
So, a Telehealth was installed. At designated times throughout the day, the machine would remind her to take her blood pressure and test her oxygen levels. It asked her other questions, too — questions about her diet, her medications, questions tailored to the specific requirements of managing her disease at home, instead of the hospital.
Then, Telehealth would automatically send the information and vital signs to Home Health, via a one-way, automatically generated telephone call.
One day, after several “normal” reports had already been sent, Home Health received a report from the woman’s machine indicating her oxygen level was low – very low. With normal oxygen levels registering between 90 and 100 percent, her oxygen level indicated mid-70s. Something was wrong.
Swarnes reviewed the information and called her. She asked her to take the reading again.
The woman rechecked her oxygen level. It was even lower.
Swarnes asked her to check the oxygen tubing by placing the cannula (the nose piece) in a glass of water to see whether oxygen was coming out of it.
“The heck with it,” the woman said. “I just want to go back to bed.”
Still on the phone, and while Swarnes was dispatching someone to her home, the woman’s mailman stopped by to deliver the mail. Swarnes quickly recruited him and requested he check the tubing to the concentrator.
He did. He inspected the tubing for crimps and traced it to the concentrator. It was correctly hooked to a humidifier bottle, but the lid on the bottle was not screwed on, and the oxygen was not getting through.
“If she had gone back to bed, she probably would’ve died,” Swarnes said.
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