Tower Health expands home health services
WEST READING >> Tower Health has officially launched Tower Health at Home, the health care provider’s reorganized and expanded home health services that was announced in mid-October.
As planned, on Dec. 31, the partners of Affilia Home Health amicably dissolved the partnership and reorganized home health services in their respective service areas. Those partners include: Tower Health; Lancaster General Health-Penn Medicine; and UPMC Pinnacle.
With the end of the partnership, employees of the Affilia Berks branch became employees of Home Health Care Management (HHCM), the parent company of Berks VNA, Pottstown VNA, and Advantage Home Care.
And effective Jan. 1, 2019, Home Health Care Management became part of Tower Health.
“Home health plays a vitally important role in the continuum of care and Tower Health at Home expands our ability to better manage the healthcare needs of the communities we serve,” Clint Matthews, president and CEO, Tower Health, said in a press release. “Working together, our team will provide seamless home health services enabling patients to recover, or live with an illness, in the comfort of their homes, surrounded by family and friends.”
As part of the reorganization, the 58 Affilia employees that had been working in Affilia’s Berks County office joined the 157 employees working for Home Health Care Management to create a home health care staff of about 215, according to Tower Health.
“We are pleased to be part of Tower Health, one of the strongest and most innovative health systems in the region that is dedicated to excellence and value. By providing care, education, and support, the Tower Health at Home clinical staff teaches patients how to monitor and care for themselves helping them recover more quickly,” Lynann DeCusatis, interim CEO of Tower Health at Home, said in the release.
Tower Health at Home patients will continue to receive care — without interruption, from their current provider — allowing them to continue their existing treatment plan and to continue to develop the relationship with their provider, according to Jessica Bezler, a spokeswoman for Tower Health.
Tower Health at Home is based at 1170 Berkshire Boulevard in Wyomissing, Berks County.
Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health and Reading Hospital & Medical Center (now Tower Health) merged their home-health services in 2003. UPMC Pinnacle joined in 2012, to create the membership of the former Affilia Home Health.
The launch of Tower Health at Home is the latest strategic move by Tower Health. On Dec. 1, the health care system completed its acquisition of Premier Urgent Care to form Tower Health Urgent Care. Tower Health acquired 19 Premier facilities in Chester, Montgomery and Bucks counties, as well as one location in Berks County and one in Delaware. The acquisition brings to 22 the number of Tower Health urgent care facilities across the region.
The Berks County-based Tower Health owns six of the region’s hospitals including: Brandywine Hospital in Caln Township; Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia; Jennersville Hospital in Penn Township in southern Chester County; Phoenixville Hospital in Phoenixville; Pottstown Hospital in Pottstown; and Reading Hospital in West Reading. For more information, visit www.towerhealth.org.