Customized At-Home Vascular Access Solution highlights the clinical case of a patient who needed reliable, long-term vascular access for IV medication and how Vascular Wellness improves patient care with customized solutions regardless of the setting.
Customized At-Home Vascular Access Solution
– Clinical Case
An elderly at-home patient was experiencing recurrent respiratory infections, and her physician ordered a PICC line so IV antibiotics could be administered over an extended period.
Customized At-Home Vascular Access Solution
– Diagnosis and Treatment
The Health Clinic contacted Vascular Wellness and ordered a PICC line to be placed in a patient who needed long-term IV antibiotics. The vascular access clinician arrived at the clinic, conducted a thorough patient assessment, and placed the PICC line quickly and easily. Because the patient would return home with the PICC line in place so it could be accessed regularly for several months, it was important that they understood how to keep it clean and working.
The Vascular Wellness clinician took the time to show the patient and family how to perform dressing changes at home and provided written instructions to reference as needed. The family still felt nervous about the responsibility of the task, and inquired about having a Vascular Wellness clinician return weekly to perform dressing changes and ensure the PICC line was clean and working properly. Dressing changes is a service that Vascular Wellness provides, although returning weekly for several months could become costly, so the clinician suggested and made video recordings for easy reference and shared them with the family. Despite this additional information and training, the patient and family determined they still were not comfortable performing dressing changes on their own.
Knowing how important PICC line care and maintenance is to the patient’s treatment plan, and how the risk of line inoperability and infection increases with poor line care and maintenance, Vascular Wellness quickly adjusted and created a customized service that was budget-friendly and affordable for the patient. This customized arrangement includes a weekly visit to ensure the PICC line is working and in good shape and to change the dressing. The same vascular access clinician typically performs the inspection and change each week, and over time, the clinician, patient, and her family have become quite close.
Customized At-Home Vascular Access Solution
– Patient-Centric Approach
Because of our overall holistic Patient-Centric approach and the relationship that the clinician and patient formed over regular visits and connections, the Vascular Wellness clinician knew that the patient was celebrating a major milestone birthday. Knowing a birthday celebration was being held at the clinic for the patient, the clinician brought birthday cupcakes for everyone to share as a surprise during her weekly visit.
The patient recently shared, “[Clinician] inserted my PICC line and I was so pleased that it was not painful at all! She put me at ease with her friendly professionalism from the very start and is definitely someone who knows and does her job extremely well and clearly loves her work. [Two other clinicians] have cleaned my PICC line on separate days and were also very professional, friendly and proficient with their work. I would highly recommend all of them and their company. They go above and beyond to make sure their patients receive the very best care!”
The patient’s daughter shared, “You were beyond sweet to drop off a birthday cupcake/cake for her! She/we loved it and she was very touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity.”
And finally, the health clinic shared this feedback about partnering with Vascular Wellness…
“Everything from scheduling to patient care and proficiency with the tasks at hand couldn’t be any better. [Clinician] has been an absolute pleasure to work with and has exceeded all of our expectations! We look forward to a long working relationship with Vascular Wellness. I would give them a million satisfaction stars if I could!”
Vascular Access Experts
– Key Points
Vascular Wellness solutions are customizable to provide a superior patient-centric and client-centric approach that ensures the best care possible, no matter the setting. Serving patients at health clinics like this one, or at patients’ homes, is not new to us. Our extensive and redundant geographic coverage enables us to travel to the patient quickly, no matter where they are, and ensure the best vascular access services are available to all patients and healthcare partners in rural as well as more populated areas.
Outpatient procedures, such as placing a PICC line in this case, are more convenient and lead to easier recoveries due to the patient being in the comfort of their own home. Outpatient services provide lower risk from hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) and other complications, faster treatment, more personalized care, and improved continuity of care.
Vascular Wellness clinicians are Vascular Access Experts in all aspects of Vascular Access Device (VAD) placement including assessment, insertion, maintenance, difficult placements, and removal. Vascular Wellness Specialists are W2 employees who participate in ongoing comprehensive training with skill verification, follow best practices for line placement for vein preservation and to prevent side effects, and utilize the best equipment and supplies from Bard/BD, a leading supplier to hospitals.
Our partners know they can rely on us and trust us to provide comprehensive, empathetic, and compassionate care for the patient, and their family and friends.
Nurse Clinicians in Action is a spotlight series highlighting some of the interesting cases that Vascular Wellness clinicians have encountered and participated in treatment. These cases involve challenging situations or intriguing clinical presentations and may involve more than one Vascular Wellness clinician, as our clinicians have the ability to consult each other while in the field, as well as an on-call Clinical Administrator via a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) compliant communication app. In addition, our extensive training program and diverse client base, including Level 1 Trauma Centers, Short Term Acute Care Hospitals, Long Term Acute Care Hospitals, and Skilled Nursing Facilities, provide our clinicians with a wide array of clinical experience and why we believe our clinicians, as a group, are the most experienced and best trained and supported vascular access clinicians.
If you require Vascular Access or want to learn more, speak to the team at Vascular Wellness today.
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Vascular Wellness provides:
(1) Comprehensive vascular access services to North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia; and
(2) Customized vascular access services to Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia; and
(3) Support vascular access services to Ohio and Kentucky.
Read more NCIA Patient Cases
Nurse Clinicians in Action stories highlight some of the interesting cases in which Vascular Wellness clinicians have encountered and participated as valuable team members.
Need a Customized At-Home Vascular Access Solution?
Serving patients at their home is not new to us. We bring high quality care to patients regardless of the setting.
