Next week, all of Home Health and Hospice, who make up a large portion of Memorial Home Services, will participate in an annual skills day revolving around infection control processes. According to Jodi Holcomb, Manager of Rehab in Memorial Home Services, these processes differ wildly when employees are out in the field at patient's homes, than they do while in the hopspital or clinical setting. Nursing and therapy staff as well as home health aids will ateend five to seven varoius skills stations facilitated by other home services department managers. Much of the day will include lecture presentation prior to the skills stations rotation, which includes basic hand washing, MRSA/C.Diff isolation precautions, cleaning Memorial equipment, teaching patients and their care-givers the proper precautions and transportation of the specimens to the laboratory. There is a strong focus on patient education this year with an emphasis on learning the needs of individual patient's conditions. It's not only important for our employees to understand the patient's conditions but for the patients to understand as well, along with their care-givers so that patients receive the best care possible in all environments. 

Each year, the skills days focus on different topics, based on the current needs of the department and the patients. Home Health and Hospice staff also participate in an IV recertification annually which is part of a separate education.