Delivering health and happiness

Wednesday, August 19, was a really great day for Cindy Williams Director of IT & Informatics and  Financial Consultants Nick Stimson, Jade Carper and Jessica Holcomb. It was even better for many skilled nursing staff and residents in Eastern Iowa where quarantining and a devastating storm have taken a toll on everybody’s mood.

On Wednesday, Cindy and her team dropped off the first iPads affixed to rolling stands for residents to use for telehealth purpose and connecting with family and friends. Since each Care Initiatives location will be receiving 2 of these iPad units, there’s bound to be more really great days for those deliveries.

In total, Care Initiatives purchased 88 iPad stands so each of the 44 locations can have 2 apiece. The purchase made possible by grants through Center of Medicare & Medicaid Service’s Civil Money Penalty Reinvestment Program (CMS CMPRP). In May, in the wake of the restrictions due to COVID-10, the program was announced to support telehealth and remote meetings with family.

Care Initiatives department heads came together and determined using those funds to purchase iPads for each location was the best use of funds for physical health, mental and health and wellbeing by improving communication options.

“Of course, each of our administrators and directors of nursing have iPhones and each location has a Chromebook that residents can use to talk with family or for standard doctors appointments,” Cindy said. “But they have to stand there and hold the phone for them. With these freestanding iPads, now they can just help the resident connect and walk away. It gives the resident so much more privacy when they are having a conversation whether it's with a family member or a doctor or counselor.”

“Our rehabilitation therapists with Reliant Rehab will even be able to use the technology to assess speech pathology and administer occupational therapy,” Cindy added. “They can continue their therapy in a much safer way with no contact.” 

“It will take about a week and a half, maybe two to get them all delivered,” Cindy noted. “We could have packed them up and just mailed them, but we (department heads) felt pretty strongly that we really wanted to deliver on customer services and present each facility with 2 units up and running, ready to go.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty fun delivering these,” she added.