Valley patient Agnes recently received life-saving care at Valley. She credits her RN Care Manager with helping to keep her out of the hospital after a long stay. Her story was recently featured by Ivanhoe News. You can watch the video at the bottom of this page.
Not long after Agnes moved to Seattle from Hawaii, she was admitted to Valley. Over a two-month period, Agnes would be admitted to the hospital five times with multiple worsening conditions including a cardiac stent, a foot infection, and a kidney abscess.
After discharge, Agnes was closely monitored remotely by Jelaine Boyce, an RN Care Manager at Valley Family Medicine Primary Care.
Jelaine regularly called Agnes. “She would be honest with me. If I didn’t encourage her to get evaluated, she would’ve gotten sicker, she would’ve stayed home,” says Jelaine. “It was a scary time for her, and I know she didn’t want to burden her family.”
Agnes did return for in-person care, and she was diagnosed with sepsis. Sepsis is the body’s most extreme response to a viral or bacterial infection. It is a medical emergency that requires immediate care. If not treated, sepsis can quickly cause tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Fortunately, Agnes’ sepsis was resolved with fluids and antibiotics.
“(Jelaine is) not my family, she’s not even related to me, but she cares,” Agnes says.
How did Agnes Get Connected with Jelaine?
Jelaine is part of Valley’s RN Care Management team. The RN Care Management Program at Valley was developed out of a recognized need to provide a safety net to catch extra care needs and to connect patients, currently seeing one of our primary care providers, with access to treatment resources before their needs become an emergency.
The program serves a diverse population of patients, focusing on those that are the most acutely ill, and is provided free of charge. As seen with Agnes and Jelaine, RN Care Managers routinely follow up with patients to track changes in their health through home monitoring and are able to help when additional medical care is needed.
Valley currently has 24 RN Care Managers who work with our primary care and specialty care clinics. They are a key part of our mission to care for our community like family.
As for Agnes, she says she is one of the lucky ones who survived sepsis thanks to having a dedicated nurse in her corner.
What a wonderfully inspiring story! As an RN and huge advocate for my patients, I am so proud of this nurse manager featured in this story and the advocacy work that she does. We need more programs like this, especially preventative care programs, so individuals don’t have to get this sick before getting their health care needs meet.