In some circumstances, older adults may need additional care and support at home while they recover from an illness or injury, or to manage an ongoing chronic condition, or simply to maintain their independence. This is often the case following a hospitalization or nursing home stay.
UPMC offers multiple home-based resources that can assist in allowing an individual to live as independently as possible.
Most often, home based care is provided by a home nursing agency. Home nursing offer many services to patients and families at home, including:
UPMC Home Healthcare offers consistent, compassionate, and quality home-based nursing services. Learn more here.
Home medical equipment covers such things as:
Typically, a person’s physician will prescribe the types of home medical equipment that are necessary.
MedCare, affiliated with UPMC, provides home medical equipment and supplies to patients and families and offers free delivery. Learn more here.
Private duty nursing services are available for patients of all ages in a variety of settings, including:
Private duty nursing staff, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and nurses aides, will develop a personalized plan for both short or long term care that includes:
There are two kinds of Private Duty Nursing Services: Skilled or Non-Skilled. The table below highlights their characteristics.
Services performed by:
Level of care:
Services performed by:
Level of care:
Palliative care is a comprehensive, patient-centered approach to improving the quality of life for people who are living with a serious or potentially life-limiting illness. The main goals of palliative care are to relieve pain and discomfort and reduce patient and caregiver stress.
Palliative care provides treatment for a person’s symptoms, even if the underlying disease cannot be cured, and can give patients and their caregivers tools to make living with a serious illness more manageable.
Palliative care can be helpful in managing the symptoms of an illness, including:
Palliative care can be provided in many settings, including:
The UPMC Palliative and Supportive Institute (PSI) coordinates all of the palliative and supportive care programs and services across the entire UPMC system. Its programs and services are made up of a multidisciplinary team who are specially trained in the area of palliative medicine.
The teams work in close collaboration with a patient’s treating physicians, the patient and his or her family to develop a plan for care. This plan helps provides ways to cope with a serious or life-limiting illness and support, including:
Hospice is a specialized type of palliative care for patients suffering from an incurable illness or multiple illnesses with a life expectancy of six months or less.
Hospice care is focused on:
The multi-disciplined hospice care team can provide care in the home or in a facility such as a:
When a patient receives hospice treatment, attempts to cure the patient's underlying terminal illness are discontinued.
A patient can elect to leave hospice care for any reason, including:
UPMC provides both facility-based and home-based hospice services under the umbrella of UPMC Home Healthcare across many Pennsylvania counties. Learn more here.
