April 23, 2015 – Bridge to Home

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Anchor lead:  Helping people transition to home from the hospital gets a hand, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Bridge to Home is a new program underway at Johns Hopkins that is trying to help people who’ve been in the hospital manage the transition back home more easily.  Hannah Miller, nurse educator, describes the initiative.

Miller: We’re calling the whole program the ‘Bridge to Home’ program, so it’s all about helping patients prepare for their discharge.  The idea of the Bridge to Home program is to encourage patients to identify what we call a ‘health buddy.’ Someone within their natural support system, so their husband, their son, their daughter, but it can be a trusted neighbor, whoever the patient trusts to lend a hand while they’re in the hospital, and then through the transition home.  So they actually act as a second set of eyes and ears for the patient, as an advocate to be included in their education process as well.    :30

Miller says the health buddy is acknowledged as a part of a patient’s healthcare team and protects the patient’s interests when they often aren’t up to the task themselves.  The hope is to keep people from having to return to the hospital once they’re discharged.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.