Torrance Memorial Medical Center's team of home health professionals provide compassionate care while helping each patient achieve the highest level of independence with daily living activities. Patients receiving services from Torrance Memorial's home healthcare department are evaluated by a registered nurse or a physical therapist to the degree in which the patient can care for himself and his physical surroundings. As a patient's abilities increase, the improvements are quantified, reported, then compared with the same data from other home healthcare agencies.
These comparative reports offer an opportunity to evaluate the work that home healthcare organizations perform as they assist patients maintain or recover their independence.
Recent reports measuring improvement in patient independence have shown that Torrance Memorial's home healthcare service has a remarkable record of helping patients restore their activities of daily living.
Highlights from a recent study, conducted by the Strategic Health Care Programs, Santa Barbara, the OASIS Comparative Outcomes Report, Torrance Memorial's home healthcare outcomes included:
- The average age of a home healthcare patient at Torrance Memorial is 75, with 80 percent of these patients living in their own home, instead of a family member's home or board and care facility.
- The comparison group had an average age of 73 with 75 percent of these patients residing in their own home and 14 percent residing in a family member's home. Nine percent of these patients residing in a board and care home.
- Surprisingly, Torrance Memorial home care patients required an average of only 30 days of care, while the reference group required an average of 71 days.
- Torrance Memorial home healthcare patients showed an improvement in the activities of daily living that surpassed the reference group. Torrance Memorial did dramatically better in the improvements of dyspnea (breathing), light meal preparation, feeding, toileting, bathing, grooming, dressing and showed improvements in behavior and cognitive functioning.
In another 2000 report, prepared by the federal government and contrasting Torrance Memorial's services to agencies across the United States, Torrance Memorial fared significantly better than reference groups in their ability to assist patients to improve functions such as dressing, bathing, toileting, transferring, walking and eating.