AMOREM receives grant from Bernhardt Furniture Foundation
LENOIR —AMOREM recently purchased Bamboo Health, a software system that provides AMOREM with “pings” on their patients – which is a real-time notification of patient care transitions among other healthcare providers, such as hospitals, emergency rooms and post-acute facilities by using admission, discharge and transfer data.
The software program was purchased with grant funds provided by the Bernhardt Funiture Foundation.
The “pings” will provide clinical support and visibility into patient events, helping AMOREM clinicians improve outcomes, reduce total cost of care and ensure effective collaboration with outside providers.
This critical information will allow AMOREM clinicians to, for example, know if one of their palliative medicine or hospice patients shows up at a local hospital’s emergency department. Many times, patients will go to the emergency room for symptom management, such as a pain crisis and AMOREM is not notified and the patient is admitted to the hospital. Knowing this information could help prevent hospitalization of the patient and allow AMOREM to bring the patient, if it’s a hospice patient, to one of AMOREM’s patient care units.
Most recently, AMOREM received a “ping” on one of its palliative patients who was admitted to Caldwell UNC HealthCare. After receiving the “ping” the palliative medicine intake specialist was able to notify one of AMOREM’s nurse practitioners rounding at the hospital that the patient was there. The nurse practitioner visited the patient and deemed her hospice appropriate and had her transferred to one of AMOREM’s patient care units, freeing up the bed at the hospital for another patient.
“Bamboo Health provides that real-time critical information about our patients so that we can ensure they get the right care at the right time,” said Sandy Nichols, AMOREM’s palliative medicine coordinator.
As the local nonprofit hospice provider, AMOREM wants to be a good partner with its local hospitals. “In addition to the right care at the right time, this program helps our patients avoid unnecessary hospitalizations,” Nichols said, “Which means that hospital room can be used for another patient.”
“AMOREM is grateful for the grant from the Bernhardt Furniture Foundation which made the initial investment into Bamboo Health possible,” said Kerri L. McFalls, AMOREM’s senior director of marketing and development. “As a nonprofit hospice provider, the support from the communities we serve plays a big part in the excellent end-of-life care we are able to provide.”
AMOREM has served as your local nonprofit and palliative medicine provider for more than 40 years, first as Burke Hospice and Palliative Care and Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care and since 2021, as AMOREM.
For more information about AMOREM and its services, visit www.amoremsupport.org or call 828.754.0101.
