Using Data To Help Home Health Workers Manage Patients’ Conditions

(By – Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health news)

There is little in Ruby’s life that is easy. Nearly blind and unable to walk more than a step or two, the 39-year-old struggles to raise three sons while dealing with a daunting array of health conditions, from diabetes that recently landed her in the hospital to pain from bulging spinal disks.

Without support, odds are she’ll end up back in a hospital. But Ruby, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her family’s privacy, is part of a growing effort to reduce those odds by arming home care aides and other non-medical workers with the power of data.

On a recent Monday, health coach Nhaomie Douyon visited Ruby in the small, rented two-story row house where she lives with her children. Douyon works for the Coordinating Center, a Maryland-based nonprofit that helps organize medical and social needs for clients like Ruby, who live in designated medically underserved areas. Read more…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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