“This was more intensive than home care.” 

When a serious medical diagnosis leads to frequent trips to the hospital and worrisome complications, it can be stressful for not just the patient, but their family as well. Marshfield Clinic Health System patient Bonnie discovered this in April when atrial fibrillation (AFib) landed her in the emergency room not once, but twice. 

“I had a total of 17 days in the hospital in April, which was not good,” she recalls. “I just had so many of the AFib episodes. And the thing is, I used to walk every day. My stamina was gone. I’d get so short of breath, I was having difficulty walking from one chair to another chair.” 

Bonnie lives alone, and two of her children live out of state— one in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the other in Seattle, WA, prompting worry from them as they couldn’t visit easily to help. Bonnie needed monitoring, medication adjustments and labs as she waited for surgery to implant a pacemaker that would correct the abnormal heart rhythm.  

Thankfully, Marshfield’s Home Recovery Care stepped in. The hospital-at-home program allows eligible patients to return home to complete their hospital-level care, and Bonnie was able to receive her ongoing care at home. 

“The nurses that came to take care of me at home did vital signs, they made sure I was taking my meds correctly, they even did an EKG for me. It was just a relief to have somebody to call or to know that they were coming. It really helped me get through that time.” 

Bonnie’s children agreed. “They were all really grateful that the nurses were coming as frequently as they do,” Bonnie shares.  

Safe, Convenient Care at Home 

Another benefit that Bonnie discovered was the convenience of receiving the care she needed without having to travel. Leaving home for appointments was especially challenging, since she was not driving.  

Without the twice daily nursing visits from the program, Bonnie says, “I could call the clinic or go to the ER if there was a problem.” Even for her routine lab draws, she had to find a ride, but instead the nurses who visited her at home made sure that her bloodwork was completed— and the EKG at home saved a trip to the clinic as well. 

The program also brought her virtual visits with a physician. “That was the other thing, when the nurse was here then we’d have a doctor visit at the same time,” she explains. “It was nice to know that there was a doctor that was talking to me too.” 

Although she is now on the mend with a new pacemaker, if she ever found herself in need of care again, Bonnie says, “I would choose it again. I have been talking it up with other people and saying, ‘this is something I wasn’t aware of.’ This was more intensive than home care. It was good.”