Home Care of the Grand Valley has grown out of its original name, but not its primary mission, and will continue delivering “compassionate healing at home,” only now as SummitWest Care.
When St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction shut down its home health program, something did not feel right among many western Coloradans, according to SummitWest Care CEO Charleen Raaum.
“The community really came together and recognized that this was a need and a service that the community needed,” Raaum said in a recent interview. “Home Care of the Grand Valley was born and, here we are 12 years later and we are really looking at trying to expand our region.”
SummitWest provides health care services to adults and children with acute or chronic conditions in the comfort of their own homes. Home health care amenities include rehabilitation, physical therapy, senior care, newborn and pediatric care, in addition to specialty services.
The organization now serves a much larger area of the Western Slope, including Mesa, Garfield, Eagle, Gunnison and Pitkin counties.
“By reaching out and expanding our reach into the Glenwood Springs area and those five counties it really encompasses our mission and our name goes along with that, too,” Raaum explained.
From Medicaid to Medicare recipients, the community-based nonprofit works closely with patients as they make the difficult transition from their hospital room back home.
“We do care coordination with all hospitals. We do not favor one hospital; we are a standalone agency,” Raaum said.
Raaum described SummitWest Care’s presence in hospitals as one that helps determine with hospitalists the appropriateness of home health care for any given patient.
“Not only that, we bridge the gap,” Raaum said. “In hospitals you have hospitalists. The primary care physicians are not going in the hospitals anymore nowadays.”
Because of this, Raaum said a fragmented gap exists.
“What home care does is we are the bridge and we communicate with the physician that this patient is discharging and we make sure they have a follow-up visit,” Raaum said of just one of the numerous services SummitWest Care facilitates.
“Home care is the bridge between the gaps in those different entities that serve the patient,” Raaum described. “People just want to be at home. And that is our goal to get them home, get them healthy, rehabbed and happy.”
Certified in Integrated Care Management, SummitWest Care’s full-time employees follow the Institute for Healthcare’s Improvements Triple guidelines, which aim to improve the patient experience of care, improve the health of populations and reduce costs of health care, according to the organization.
“Just looking at affordability, home care is the most affordable type of care that people can receive,” Raaum said. “We encompass from birth until the end of life.”