By Natalie Townsend
Published in The Williamson County Sun September 14, 2014

If life were a road, at birth it would stretch ahead, dark and flat. As the years pass, time and wear would worry the asphalt gray, and the experienced traveler would begin to bump along, eventually having to dodge pot holes. Family Eldercare provides services to seniors that help smooth the path as clients age. It’s a niche the organization calls a “continuum of care,” an array of services in Austin and Georgetown focused on providing long-term care for seniors. It has served residents of Williamson County since the late 1990s.

“Most of our programs are long-term relationships. We don’t just work with people for three to six months then start a new case,” said Joyce Hefner, director of housing and community services for Family Eldercare. “When we start services with someone, they are often with us for five to 10 years until they pass.”

True to its name, Family Eldercare offers services that families often provide for their elderly loved ones, including direct support with money management and checkbook balancing, housing, in-home care services, from grocery shopping to grooming, and a guardianship program.

The pursuit of healthiness

Beyond aiding seniors with present needs, Family Eldercare also emphasizes prevention and promotion of healthy lifestyles. Although unable to consult a crystal ball, the organization is armed with research.

Georgetown’s Aging Advisory Committee completed an advantage aging initiative last year that assessed the needs of Georgetown residents, asking participants in 2011 what they thought an aging-friendly community was, and how Georgetown measured up. A federal grant allowed Family Eldercare to hire a professor from Indiana University to enact the study, which ended up receiving an impressive 1,200 responses.

” Georgetown just blew everybody out of the water in terms of the number of people who responded to the survey. Usually, it would be great to get 300 surveys back on a project like that,” Ms. Hefner said. “That’s a very special thing about Georgetown….the community pride and their willingness to look at the community and strive to make it better.”

Communities in Texas and across the country have utilized the study, which is available online.

Eliminating hospital readmissions

Seeds of Strength donated $3,000 for Family Eldercare’s Care Transitions Program, a joint effort between Family Eldercare and Lone Star Circle of Care. According to Ms. Hefner, studies analyzing Medicare readmissions have revealed that 18 percent of people that return to the hospital after a routine medical hospitalization do so within 30 days, with 75 percent of the readmissions due to preventable causes.

At risk of being penalized, Lone Star Circle of Care must eliminate instances of unnecessary return trips to the hospital within 30 days of hospitalization. As a result, the health care provider oversees 33 health metrics for Medicare clients to track their progress and ensure continued health.

Family Eldercare facilitates this process for Lone Star Circle of Care by utilizing a case manager to identify people failing health metrics and ascertain these clients have the necessary resources to stay out of the hospital.

“We would often see our clients come back from a routine medical visit to a hospitalization without the ability or understanding of what they needed to do to follow up with what the doctor recommended,” Ms. Hefner said. “Maybe they didn’t understand it or maybe they did, but they didn’t

have a way to get their medication because they couldn’t drive or they didn’t have the money. There are many real life barriers in their homes to keep them from following through with medical recommendations.”

The $3,000 Seeds of Strength donated to Family Eldercare is paying a portion of the salary for a case manager in the Care Transitions Program. The funds will help seniors like Minnie Howington, a Georgetown resident who had “a rough time” last year with her radiation treatment. Feeling under the weather, Ms. Howington was having trouble keeping up with her medication. Family Eldercare checked on Ms. Howington and ensured she received the necessary treatment. She now feels well enough to be active and cooks for her son, oxygen tank in tow. Ms. Howington is now meeting 94 percent of her health metrics, according to Ms. Hefner.