Shawn Hanshew from the Deer Meadows Home Health marketing team has been promoting our wound care program to the medical community of Philadelphia and the surrounding counties of Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks. Our clinical specialist team members are board-certified in Wound Care WCC, Diabetic Wound Care DWC, and are Ostomy Management Specialists OMS. We practice evidence-based and current standards of care, and work with physicians to customize an individual plan of care for the patient. We will achieve increased healing rates and decrease readmission’s for patients.

Shawn has been partnering with a number of podiatrists to offer home wound care for their diabetic foot wound patients. Approximately 15 percent of all patients with diabetes can be expected to develop ulceration in their lifetime, thus putting them at risk for lower extremity amputation. Treatments for infected diabetic foot wounds account for one quarter of all diabetic hospital admissions in the United States. Patient education, proper footgear and regular foot examination can decrease the frequency and severity of ulceration. However when ulceration does occur, the Deer Meadows home wound care specialists can be a cost-effective intervention that can avoid hospital admissions in appropriate cases.

We are utilizing the most advanced technology and treatments in the industry, including Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (Wound Vac), Compression Therapy, Unna Boot Application, Lymphedema Treatment, and Tissue Analytics. In specific, Tissue Analytics is bringing wound care into the 21^st century by turning the common smartphone into a sophisticated image analysis platform. Our wound care nurses objectively and automatically measure wounds with HIPPA Compliant IOS and Android Apps.They can also stream photographs directly to a physician’s desktop where the physician can evaluate, track, and manage patients on our secure web portal.

In addition, Shawn has been working closely with several colorectal surgeons to promote the Deer Meadows home wound care and ostomy referral program.He plans to work directly with surgeons, their teams, and their pre/post-surgical ostomy patients through a home care referral process. This will give ostomy patients access to our highly-trained and certified wound care nurses and ostomy specialists while recovering at home. Shawn has been sharing his personal story as a former ostomy patient himself and walking the patients through the process of their ostomy through its reversal. Our ostomy specialists are helping patients with distal irrigation of their stomas, educating the patient and their family, and closely monitoring patient progress at home. Once the patient’s reversal surgery is complete and the patient is discharged to home, our wound care and ostomy specialists will continue to monitor the patient at home and treat any open wounds that may have been caused by the surgery. The colorectal community is very excited to partner with Deer Meadows Home Health to make this program available to their patients.

If you have a wound care referral or would like more details of this program, please contact Shawn Hanshew at (267) 648-0361 and shanshew@deermeadowshomehealth.org.

This week starts a busy time over the next few weeks for the staff of Deer Meadows Home Health and Support Services(DMHHSS). Kate Liggins, Private Duty Manager has worked closely with Carla Fleming, the Manager of Special Programs for many PHA sites in the Philadelphia area to schedule events at 6 PHA housing sites in the Philadelphia area. Of the selected sites, 5 of these locations has never been visited by DMHHSS staff previously. This will be the selected locations first chance to receive 5-star care from one of Philadelphia’s premier home care agencies. At these events participants will be able to have their blood pressure screened by a licensed nurse as well as speak with a licensed clinical social worker in regards to depression. The participants will also have the opportunity to learn about the services that DMHHSS has to offer and also to sit down and enjoy a refreshing drink and snack. DMHHSS is no newcomer to providing these types of services to the Philadelphia residents. In the past DMHHSS has not only offered blood pressure screenings but has also offered diabetic foot clinics to educate the residents of the communities of which it serves. This is the beginning of DMHHSS working closely with PHA sites and DMHHSS staff hopes to be able to keep Philadelphia healthy one screening at a time.