Home Care Network

As soon as you enter the home care program, a coordination team (consisting of various specialties involved in palliative and supportive care) get to maintain a contact with the patient and the family. the coordination team identifies the patient and family needs based on which the composition of the home care team and temporal planning of visit is determined.

The home care coordinator always informs you of the approximate time of arrival of the team. This time varies according to the team schedule, your geographical distance from the team route, patient needs and the priority of the patient’s condition.

Home Care Network Services

The home care network provides a wide range of services in respond to the patient needs, some of the most important of which are:

Medical and nursing services at home

Regular medical care is essential for cancer patients, especially those with severe complications related to disease and side effect of treatment. MACSA physicians visit the patient at home to to prevent him or her from multiple unnecessary hospital visits and long queues.

A trained general practitioner (palliative care physician) or specialist visits the patient. The palliative care physician, in addition to scheduling the next appointment, may prescribe medication, or perform other procedures to control various complications. He/she may also refer the patient to other specialties or other MACSA services (such as borrowing medical equipment).

basically, the team visits the patient in regular working hours however in the case of critical circumstances they are committed to visit the patient at any time of the day. Even though, MACSA medical home care service is not a replacement to emergency services provided by EMS, Generally the medical and nursing services provided to the patient and his/her family include the following:

• Control of complications and symptoms of the disease

Cancer and its treatment are usually associated with complications and the home care medical team seeks to control such complications. Some of the most important activities done by the medical team to control the symptoms at home for the patient are as following:

• Pharmacological management of pain and other annoying complications of the disease
• Tap of ascites and pleural effusion at home (draining fluid from the abdomen and pleura)
• Antibiotic therapy
• Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) and partial parenteral nutrition (PPN)

• Diagnostic procedures

Early detection of disease-related complications helps control and prevention of their progression. However, many patients can not readily benefit from such services due to the long queue for diagnostic procedures and high costs. MACSA offers a range of diagnostic services such as Doppler ultrasound, Electromyography (EMG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) in various locations, such as the patient’s home, palliative hospital ward and rehabilitation clinic. Some of the most important diagnostic procedures performed by the home medical team for the patient include:

• collection of blood sample for laboratory diagnosis
• Diagnostic ultrasound
• Diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis
• ECG

• Family Education

taking care of a cancer patient at home needs education. Palliative physicians and nurses train the caregivers about various needs of the patient. In addition, practical skills required for a quality physical care are being taught to the caregivers . Some of the most important trainings given to caregivers by the team are as the following

• Basic management of patient needs
• Monitoring of the vital signs
• Monitoring of other health indices (e.g., blood oxygen saturation, blood sugar)
• Simple care procedures (e.g., catheter flush, Enema, IM injection)
• Wound care

• General nursing care

A wide spectrum of the home care patient needs are satisfied by nursing services, specifically the need that cannot be fulfilled by the caregivers. Below you can see a list of nursing services provided by MACSA home care nursing team.

• Venipuncture and iv injection/infusion
• Blood samples collection
• flush and replacement of the port port-a-cath
• implementation of patient-controlled analgesia pump Insertion of nasogastric tube
• Urinary catheterization
• Suction of respiratory secretions
• Removal of surgical sutures

• Bed sore care

Bed sores are one of the major complications that many hospitalized patients may suffer from. MACSA provides services and training related to wound prevention, care and treatment by specialty nurses.

• Ostomy care training

It can be difficult at first for the patient to use an ostomy bag (such as colostomy, ileostomy, nephrostomy, etc.) and, training is needed for proper care of the stoma and ostomy bag. One of the specialized services of MACSA Nursing are ostomy care and ostomy care training. MACSA Palliative Care Nurses teach the patient how to properly use and care for the ostomy bag. Such training helps the patients that recently have admitted to use an ostomy bag to adopt to it earlier.

Psycho-Oncology Services

MACSA Psychologists provide home-based counseling in the cases that the patient has trouble admitting to the rehabilitation clinic or when the in-home therapy is considered to best meats the patient’s care goals. Home-based counseling might be provided jointly with other clinicians (specifically physician or nurse) or alone. Home based sessions may cover a wide range of issues faced by the patient and caregivers, specially during the advanced phase of the disease.

Social Working Home Visit

Making a close connection with patient and the family is gained by the efforts that a social worker allocates to develop a deep understanding of the conditions of the client. The active presence of the social worker in major events of the patient’s life, builds a reciprocal emotional connection between the two. This connection can be achieved by the means of regular home visits. Home visit assists the social worker to ensure the welfare of the patient at home. Social worker also helps the family and the caregivers to increase the adaptation between the abode and the patient’s needs. Home visits also provide the opportunity of active participation in amelioration of the social crises that the patient and/or his or her family may encounter.

Rehabilitation Services

Rehabilitation is the process that helps an individual to gain highest level of function and independence, that might have been damaged by disease or other factors. The mobility, physical function, mental status and emotional conditions of the cancer patients may sometimes be diminished, so that the home-based provision of rehabilitation services (specifically, physical therapy and occupational therapy) is preferable.
Physical and occupational therapists of MACSA, visit patients with such limitations at home.

Spiritual Care

A cancer patient may face a variety of spiritual, existential, religious and divine issues. Spiritual care (also known as pastural care and chaplaincy) is a discipline within palliative care that aims to respond to such issues so that the individual may regain his or her inner peace. A certified spiritual caregiver visits patients who might have limitations to visit the rehabilitation clinic, at home.