Bartlett Regional | House Calls | Spring 2018

“I watched the fireworks from the window in the front room. I felt like an alien, out of place. But it sure is nice to have running water and a door.” —Laverne Hoffer HERE FOR YOU: Christa Womack, Social Worker Case Manager, and Claire Geldhof, RN, Nurse Case Manager, can be found in the emergency department at Bartlett. www.bartletthospital.org 9 Geldhof met with the patient and his mother. She told them about support groups for families, made an appointment at the Front Street Clinic and showed them where the clinic is on the map. On this particular day, only 15 percent of the 33 patients on Geldhof ’s callback list had insurance through their employer. More than half were on Medicaid. While Geldhof focuses on medical advice to patients, her co-worker Christa Womack, Social Worker Case Manager, helps them access community and financial resources. Geldhof and Womack share the office and often work as a team. Womack’s favorite aspects of social work are connecting patients with empowering strategies and improving their quality of life for the long term. She helps them with services like housing, food security, public assistance, connecting with services providers, and developing care plans. If a patient needs long-term case management, she helps connect them to community case managers for ongoing support. Case Management Services in the ED expanded After a conference in the Bay area, Jeannette Lacey Dunn, Case Management Director, shadowed social workers at San Francisco General Hospital. She returned to Bartlett ready to start a program. It began with one part-time social worker case manager in the ED and now has a full-time social worker and full-time nurse. “The primary goal of the program is to identify the needs of high utilizers and connect them with resources and services to meet their needs,” she says. However, high utilizers are not the only population served. Case managers help others navigate the health care landscape. “Anyone asking for extra help or referred by the ED doctor or nurse—including the elderly, those with mental health issues or anyone else needing direction,” Lacey Dunn says. At Bartlett, the nurse case manager position was added in the last year, supporting initial program goals and the new component of the post-discharge callbacks for a portion of patients seen in the ED. Guidance beyond the hospital Patient relationships with case managers can extend long after patients are discharged. “One guy will still call me,” says Lacey Dunn. “He’s in recovery now. Whenever he has an issue, I help get things straightened out for him.” Laverne Hoffer, 62, started working at age 13, with jobs in logging camps and oil fields around the West. Hobbled by work accidents and decades struggling with alcohol abuse and homelessness, he met with Lacey Dunn about five years ago. “She’s been real helpful, since I’m not familiar with the system,” Hoffer says. He got sober in 2011, had a knee replacement and, thanks to Lacey Dunn, has had a roof over his head since 2014. By Katie Bausler, Community Relations Director, Bartlett Regional Hospital