St. Claire Regional Medical Center Strives to Keep Patients and Loved Ones Connected

St. Claire HealthCare understands the worry you might have about a loved one that has been admitted as a patient at St. Claire Regional Medical Center as we continue to face the COVID-19 pandemic. To reduce the stress and worry, a patient support team has been created to give you regular updates on your loved one’s condition throughout their stay.

The goal for offering these updates is to connect our patients’ with their loved ones while at the same time preventing a large volume of calls that can potentially exhaust precious time that the nursing staff could have dedicated to patient care activities.

“Dealing with a loved one being hospitalized is difficult in itself, but adding concerns of COVID-19 to the situation can make loved ones feel very uneasy. We hope the communication this team will provide will ease any concerns our patients’ family and friends may have,” said Caren Daniels, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Hospital-Based Services at St. Claire HealthCare.

A member of the patient support team will contact each patient’s designated patient support contact person regularly. The communication schedule will vary from unit to unit. For security, every contact person will be assigned a passcode that they will be asked to reveal at the beginning of each phone call. During this call, an update on the patient’s condition, care plans, and activities will be provided. Any questions you may have can also be addressed during the call.

While SCH’s patient support team would love to be able to speak with every member of the patient’s family or friend circle, this isn’t realistic. Staff will only be available to speak with the designated patient support contact person. That individual will be responsible for sharing any information with those it may concern.

To further connect patients with their loved ones, we are offering virtual visitations. “One key to a patient’s recovery and mental well-being is communication with their support team,” said Dr. Daniels. “As our visitor policy became more restricted, we knew we had to find a way to keep our patients and their loved ones connected.”

For more information or to request a virtual patient visitation, please call SCH Patient Experience at 606.783.6591.