When one of the nation’s largest senior-living, assisted-living and memory-care facility providers – Brookdale Senior Living – started diversifying its holdings, a key acquisition was the 2015 purchase of in-home nursing care specialists Nurse On Call.
Nurse On Call, a Medicare-certified home health agency with deep roots along the Treasure Coast, provides registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and rehabilitation therapists in 47 of Florida’s 67 counties.
With 83 “in-house” employees in Vero Beach, 75 in Melbourne and 58 more in Port St. Lucie, Nurse On Call gets high marks from local physicians.
One of Vero Beach’s most respected doctors, urologist Dr. Hugo Davila of Florida Cancer Specialists, for example, points out “as Americans age and live longer, increasing numbers of them will live with multiple chronic conditions and urological diseases. One of the greatest healthcare challenges facing our country today is to keep them as independent as possible.”
“Our success with this challenge,” Davila continues, “will help ensure that Americans age with dignity in a manner that meets their expectations, preferences and their urology care needs. Nurse On Call has provided this to my practice and to my patients.”
That’s the kind of buzz any business would want and the already buzzing beehive that is the Nurse On Call office on 7th Terrace in Vero Beach kicks into an even higher gear this time of year.
In addition to what Nikki Parris, a Nurse On Call physical therapy assistant, says is “the urgency for patient care, the urgency for discharges from the hospital and the same-day starts,” NOC is also now getting ready for Florida’s hurricane season.
Mary Spear, a registered nurse and director of clinical services at NOC, jumps into the conversation with a forceful, “Ah, that’s important!”
“We are in emergency management mode right now,” Spear explains. “We’re prepping now. In fact our staff meeting next week will be all about preparation for hurricane season. We do shelter. We help our patients with shelter applications and we even have the dog-friendly shelters available.”
“Every patient,” Spear emphasizes, “is called prior to us shutting down for a hurricane. I mean e-v-e-r-y patient is called. We try to encourage them to leave if they’re on a barrier island or close to the water, but we make sure that we have a list of those patients that refuse. If they need help in making arrangements, with the help of our social workers, we try and get them to a safe place. We physically can’t get them out, but we can help make arrangements to get them to another place.”
After a hurricane passes, NOC’s work continues. And intensifies.
“The first thing we do as soon as there’s an all-clear is we’re back in the office. There’s an after-hurricane team and they’re calling every one of those residents [and] patients, to find out where they are, if they’re home, if they’re safe. We do drive-bys if it’s a safe area to get into. As long as it’s safe for our clinician to get in, we check on everyone. Anybody that we can’t reach by phone, somebody’s out there checking as soon as we can.”
Uniquely, NOC also provides local doctors’ offices with hurricane preparedness kits which those physicians can then hand out to their patients – whether they are NOC clients or not – as a subtle but useful reminder that making arrangements in advance saves lives during a natural disaster.
Senior Housing News reports that the Brentwood, Tennessee-based Brookdale (NYSE symbol BKD) operates more than 1,125 senior living communities with well over 100,000 residents in 47 of the 50 states. It employs more than 80,000 healthcare workers coast to coast.
SeniorAdvisor.com’s “Best of 2017 Awards” put the company in its top spot nationwide with 121 first-place honors, including top honors for its Vero Beach facilities, says marketing coordinator Teresa Hilton.
While there any number of nursing services available throughout Florida and the rest of the country, it seems few – if any – offer the breadth and scope of service that the combined forces of Nurse On Call and Brookdale Senior Living have to offer.
“No other company can cover care from A to Z” like we can, says Brent Atwell, executive director of Brookdale senior living solutions of Vero Beach.
Nurse On Call is at 3755 7th Terrace, Suite 202. The phone number is 772-770-1167.
Brookdale Senior Living Solutions of Vero Beach can be reached at 772-770-2401 and can assist those looking for home-care and senior living solutions in Brevard and St. Lucie counties as well.