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Sentara Home Care Services
Pharmacy and Infusion Therapy
 As the region’s leader in home infusion therapy for the past two decades, Sentara Home Care Services delivers high-quality infusion care to our patients in the comfort and privacy of their own homes. Our local pharmacists and nursing staff ― available 24- hours-a-day, seven days-a-week ― are poised to respond quickly and efficiently when physicians order intravenous medications for patients with acute and chronic illnesses.
Sentara’s home infusion care is based on meticulous clinical protocols and procedures that have been proven to enhance our patients’ quality of life, as well as decrease hospital admissions and emergency room visits.
 The Infusion Team
The Sentara infusion team is made up of carefully selected and screened professionals who provide the same high quality care that physicians and patients alike have come to expect from Sentara. The infusion team includes: an infusion medical director, doctors of pharmacy (PharmD’s), certified registered nurses of infusion (CRNI’s), a registered dietitian and a medical social worker.
Sentara Home Care infusion therapy patients benefit from much of the same advanced technology and services that are available in Sentara hospitals. These services include progressive therapies, such as antibiotic therapy, chemotherapy, enteral and total parenteral nutrition (TPN), pain management, blood product transfusion and hydration therapy.
Ambulatory Infusion Pumps
State-of-the-Art Technology for Optimal Patient Convenience
In the infusion area, the availability of state-of-the-art ambulatory infusion pumps means greater independence, mobility and convenience for patients.
Curlin Pump
Sentara Home Care offers the Curlin™ infusion pump, which has the advantage of offering five different modalities. In addition, the pump allows clinicians to program a delay where a home health nurse can, for example, go to a patient’s home at 5 p.m. and set the pump to begin IV therapy five hours later.
The Curlin™ pump also has the capability to provide history retrieval and line pressure monitoring. With the Curlin™ pump, no IV poles are necessary. Patients put their IV pump in a “fanny pack” or backpack and wear it 24/7. Nurses go out every day to change the bag, and some patients can be taught to change the bags themselves. The Curlin™ pump demonstrates how far home care services have come in maximizing patient convenience.
Synchromed Medtronic Pump
For terminal patients and those with chronic pain, intrathecal or epidural infusion therapy is used through a Synchromed™ Medtronic pump
and hand-held programmer. The pump, which is surgically implanted by an anesthesiologist, holds a certain dosage of medication inside the body. It is then administered by one of several home care registered nurses, who have undergone extensive training with Synchromed™.
No other home care agency in the region offers this therapy. The simple but very significant advantage of this particular therapy is that patients who are immobile, like those with multiple sclerosis or spinal cord injuries, don’t have to find a way to get to the pain clinic to have their pump refilled.
Specialty Infusion Programs
The infusion therapy department offers a number of specialty programs for patients with chronic illnesses. Programs are available in the clinical areas of acute and chronic pain management, pediatrics, high-risk maternity and the management of chronic diseases, such as sickle cell anemia, hemophilia and congestive heart failure. The innovations Sentara Home Care Services has made on the clinical front mean more than just a write-up in medical journals:
Sickle Cell Home Based Management Program
Patients suffering from sickle cell anemia have a serious condition in which the red blood cells can become sickle-shaped (that is, shaped like a “C”) and have difficulty traveling through the blood to bring oxygen to different parts of the body.
Clumps of sickle cells can block blood flow in the blood vessels that lead to the limbs and organs. Blocked blood vessels can cause pain, serious infections and organ damage, requiring frequent emergency room visits.
Sentara’s Sickle Cell Home Based Management Program can help patients manage their disease so that they can maximize their quality of life. Patients enrolled in the program rarely visit local hospitals, while, in their past, many were visiting the ER and hospital two and three times a month.
The program provides patient education on disease treatment and predisposing factors leading to sickling events, while it also links patients to community resources.
Sentara Home Care’s nurses act as case managers who touch base regularly with patients to assure they are keeping doctor appointments, taking medications regularly and other concerns. These nurses are available via beeper to initiate therapy rapidly when a patient starts to go into a sickle cell crisis.
Sentara Home Care Services can administer multiple infusion therapies during crises that include pain management, hydration, blood transfusion, chelation, antiemetics and antibiotics. The key to making the patients more comfortable and productive is the cooperation and coordination between the home care staff, the physician and the patient.
For more information on the Sickle Cell Home Based Management Program or Sentara Home Care Services, call (757) 549-7755 or (888) 461-5649.
Multiple Sclerosis Program
Sentara’s Home Based Program for the Management of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is designed to help those who have been living with MS for a long time, as well as those who have been recently diagnosed, gain increased independence and a better quality of life.
Under the direction of a physician, the program offers episodic and chronic case management, dietitian consultation, rehabilitative therapies, a medical social worker with access to community and national support resources, and pharmacy consultations regarding medication dosing.
For more information on Sentara Home Care’s Home Based Program for the Management of Multiple Sclerosis, call (757) 549-7755 or (888) 461-5649.
Pediatric Infusion
Hospitalization is a stress-provoking and disruptive event for a child and his or her family. Sentara Home Care’s infusion department has moved "high-tech" care from the acute care setting to the home, enabling pediatric patients to be treated where they are most comfortable.
All of the same advanced technology and services available for adults are available for the pediatric infusion patient, including antibiotic therapy, chemotherapy, enteral and total parenteral nutrition, pain management and hydration therapy.
For more information about our pediatric infusion services, or to arrange care for a patient or a family member, call (757) 549-7755 or 1-888-461-5649.
Pain Management Program
Sentara Home Care Services Pain’ Management Program provides patient-focused pharmaceutical care for the home treatment of acute and chronic pain.
Sentara Home Care has been committed to serving our community’s home infusion needs for more than 20 years. For more information on infusion services through Sentara Home Care, call (757) 549-7755 or (888) 461-5649.
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