This project is designed to help provide cost-effective home health care for the elderly and disabled. It will also address the problems of access to home health care, premature institutionalization, and declining physical and mental health conditions in elderly patients.
The project will link medical centers and hospitals in Rawlins, Wyandotte and Ellis Counties, Kansas, and Jackson County, Missouri with 100 home health patients. The program will interactively monitor a patient's general health, medication, diabetic condition, blood pressure, diet, hygiene and mental health status. Each patient will be linked from his or her home with a registered nurse and periodically monitored through the system by a physician. Evaluation software will track patient progress and status. In addition to improving the health care provided to the patient, the use of this system can provide enormous financial savings over traditional institutional care.
In addition to Hays Medical Center, partners include Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City VA Medical Center, and Rawlins County Hospital.
