5 hours Ago By Pamela Knudson
GRAND FORKS – Home Therapy Solutions has qualified for certification as an Age Friendly Health Care System, Kara Welke, who owns and operates the business, has announced. This is the first entity in Grand Forks to receive this distinction, Welke said. ADVERTISEMENT This recognition comes from the Institute for Health Care Improvement, which is internationally known for its work on optimizing health care, according to a news release.
The certification indicates that an organization is providing services that meet requirements and standards which ensure that older adults receive the highest quality care and ensure they are aging in the right place. Home Therapy Solutions, which Welke founded in 2018, “was the first mobile therapy practice in the U.S.
to achieve recognition as an Age Friendly home therapy provider,” she said. “Many individuals and families mistakenly believe that assisted living or nursing home placement is their only option, unaware of the extensive resources available to support aging in place,” Welke said. And “many (health care) providers are not adequately prepared to care for our aging population.
” Age Friendly Health Care is a new framework for evaluating and managing older adults’ problems through four elements related to quality of life, she said. These elements are assessed and acted upon with each clinical encounter. By focusing on them, older adult health care improves and better outcomes are achieved.
In the process of attaining certification as an Age Friendly Health Care System, Home Therapy Solutions collaborated with the UND geriatrics program and Quality Health Associates, Welke said. “Home Therapy Solutions has been a community health care partner for training UND medical students and other health profession students,” said Dr. Donald Jurivich, professor and chairman of the UND geriatrics program, in the news release, “and it is truly remarkable how they are pioneers in the Age Friendly movement.
” ADVERTISEMENT Certification as an Age Friendly Health Care System is important, Welke said, because “80% of cognitively impaired individuals go unrecognized in primary care, and 50% of primary care physicians report feeling unprepared to care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” (Primary care is basic health care, rather than specialized care, for those making an initial approach for treatment from doctors and nurses who practice in the areas of family medicine, general internal medicine and general pediatrics.) Early detection of cognitive impairment can offer hope for improvement, Welke said, as “research shows that 20% of individuals with mild cognitive impairment may regain normal cognitive function.
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