HOME INFUSIAN RAPIDLY GROWING INDUSTRY

Home infusion is a rapidly-growing segment of the health care industry in Cape Girardeau.

For patients, it means less time and less money spent in the hospital for intravenous (IV) therapy procedures that can now be done in their own homes.

Two companies in Cape Girardeau now offer a wide variety of home infusion services to clients throughout Southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. Option Care, which opened in 1987, is owned by Jeff Bierman. IV Care, which opened in 1989, is owned by Randy Morse. Both men are registered pharmacists.

Morse and Richard Kinsey, the marketing director for Option Care, both cited the cost of home infusion vs. the cost of a hospital stay as the primary factor in the industry's growth.

"Because of the changes in medicine over the last few years, you can treat the patient in the home for about half the cost of being in the hospital," Kinsey said.

"Patients are more educated," Morse said. "They realize there is an alternative to hospitalization. Home health in general is in a growth period."

Morse also pointed out that patients are going to be more comfortable in their own homes than in the hospital and that can be a big factor in their recovery.

Advances in technology and pharmaceuticals mean that many of the treatments which were so intense they had to be performed in a controlled setting like a hospital can now be administered at home, Morse said.

Typical home infusion therapies offered by both companies include nutrition therapy, pain management for terminally ill patients, chemotherapy, hydration, IV antibiotic, immune globulin, growth hormone and uterine monitoring for women at risk for premature labor.

Antibiotic therapy "was really big when we had that huge Lyme Disease outbreak a few years ago," Kinsey said.

Nancy Greenley, the nursing director for IV Care, said home infusion gives nurses a chance to get to know patients and their families a little better might happen in a traditional hospital or doctor's office setting.

"They get to where they even continue to call you for other things after they're done with your services," Greenley said. "I enjoy the flexibility of being in the home and being able to spend the time that you need to spend with the patient. You get insight into the dynamics of the family and that's the thing that can affect the care."

Greenley said she sees a wide variety of patients, including the terminally ill and expectant mothers.

Uterine monitoring to make sure a woman doesn't go into labor prematurely "gets you involved in another aspect of care, with more of a wellness care. Everyone gets pretty excited when it's time for the baby to be born. We usually have a birthday party every year for all the babies we've helped bring into the world. It's another side completely. You get a big variety of things," she said.

A big portion of patients at Option Care are infants receiving photo therapy for jaundice, said Kinsey. The infants are placed under an ultraviolet light to correct the yellowish-skin cast the disease causes.

"That seems to be our largest patient population so far this year," Kinsey said.

"A lot of people are asking to have the therapy in the home," Greenley said. "Each year it picks up more and more. Some of our patients can't believe the things we can do in the home, as opposed to the way it used to be."