HEALTHY WOMAN:Heart to Heart Program

ARTICLE COURTESY OF HOSPICE OF CNY

If you or one of your loved one is living with heart failure, you know the special needs and challenges you must face on a day to day basis. The program offers a specially trained team of health care professionals who provide care and support in your home. Individuals with serious cardiac disease who have had repeated hospitalizations for management of their cardiac symptoms or have unintentional weight loss with progressive weakness and functional decline can be considered for the Heart to Heart program.

The Heart to Heart program can help manage a condition so unwanted trips to the emergency room or hospitalizations may become unnecessary. “These individuals can be feeling fine one moment and then the next moment experience symptoms such as shortness of breath or fluid retention which are difficult to manage at home without assistance,” explains Denise Rife, director of Patient and Family Services for Hospice of CNY.

The team is made up of physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, Home Health Aides, and volunteers whose goal is managing your unique symptoms and enhancing your emotional and spiritual well- being while remaining in your home.

This team is available 24 hours a day to respond to your needs and will make home visits when needed. If your symptoms are not able to be managed at home, we will help arrange for hospitalization and work with the hospital staff to get your symptoms under control and get you home as soon as possible.

Because Heart to Heart works in collaboration with your physician and area hospitals they can work to try and make those visits less frequent, shorter and quicker. The focus is to help you live as normal a life as you can — at home surrounded by the people and things you love most.

Would you like to know more about the program? Call (315) 634-1100 and ask for a Heart to Heart specialist. And when you call you get to talk to a live person! After hours and on weekends, our operators will have a Heart to Heart specialist get back to you usually within an hour or two.