Home Health Agency
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LSA’s Certified Home Health Agency (CHHA) provides direct nursing care to up to 100 patients at a time, including persons with diabetes or asthma, new mothers and babies, people living with HIV or AIDS, and the home-bound elderly. Care is provided to acute and chronically ill patients of all ages in their own homes.
LSA’s mission in East Harlem was first carried out through its core visiting nurse work, now the CHHA. Today, the CHHA’s nurses make over 2,400 home visits a year. Although patients are admitted with a wide range of presenting conditions, the program specializes in offering prenatal and postpartum care to mothers and follow-up care to newborns.
CHHA’s Maternity Outreach Program provides prenatal and postpartum nursing care to East Harlem women and follow-up care to their newborns. All of the women we serve are poor, and most are immigrants who are not proficient in English and have very limited education. The nurses visit pregnant women to make sure they are registered in a clinic and to provide teaching and follow-up until delivery. Following delivery, the nurses visit the mothers and babies, assessing physical status, mother/baby bonding and home conditions. The nurses provide a great deal of one-on-one teaching during these home visits and refer new mothers to center-based parenting groups and the Early Childhood Program at LSA.
The CHHA’s Healthy Living Program is a diabetes prevention program created in direct response to the epidemic of diabetes and obesity in East Harlem. The program’s goal is to promote family health and prevent diabetes by a combination of healthy eating and exercise, and includes culture-based healthful nutrition instruction and activities.
The goal of the CHHA’s Family Asthma Program is to improve health outcomes of adults and children who have asthma. The agency’s approach is to visit families in their homes to assess problems, develop a care plan and help them to learn how to improve medical management of the disease and reduce environmental triggers in the home.
The Environmental Health Program within our Family Asthma Program was established in 1997 as part of our response to the high numbers of asthmatic children being treated by LSA in East Harlem. The inclusion of a hands-on, home-visiting environmental worker in LSA’s approach makes our program unique – most asthma programs in our area involve only a general health worker. To date, our environmental worker has visited hundreds of homes, providing advice, education, and physical improvements aimed at combating mold, and insect and rodent infestations.
LSA’s Environmental Health Program has had a tremendous impact both locally, and nationally, via two educational DVD’s produced by LSA. In 2005, the program was awarded a US Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Quality Award.
CHHA photo gallery
