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WINSTED — In the wake of its 85th anniversary, Foothills Visiting Nurse & Home Care, Inc. is going through some major changes to both its Union Street location and its image. Sporting a new name and logo, the home health-care provider will now be known simply as Foothills VNA. With the acquisition of the property next door, an addition is in the works to accommodate a growing staff.
Originally established with just one visiting nurse in 1922 by the Red Cross, Foothills VNA has expanded dramatically over the years. With 60 employees providing care to residents in 15 communities, the nonprofit organization has added new technology to its comprehensive services.
“We provide services of skilled nursing, physical, occupational and speech therapy, medical social work, home health-care aides...and a myriad of other technological and advanced programs as well,� said Michael Caselas, executive director of Foothills VNA.
“With the aging health-care population, we are seeing that more patients are being seen at home,� said Caselas. Recognized by the insurance industry, “home care is the most cost effective way to treat patients.�
“With the advent of technology, there is much more we can do at home than we could do in the past. We are able to take care of patients much more comprehensively than we could do in the past,� said Caselas.
In recent years, Foothills VNA has introduced Telemonitoring.
“A Telemonitor is equipment we put in the patient’s home that monitors their blood pressure, weight and oxygen levels,� Caselas explained. “Hooked up to a normal phone line, the patient is instructed by the machine to do certain tasks. All readings are sent back here to a central monitoring station and a nurse can read their vital signs on a daily basis.�
While this service is currently being utilized by only 10 patients, it is ideal for patients who are homebound and living alone and need daily monitoring. Telemonitoring allows them to stay in their own home environment, yet receive medical care quickly should their vitals change unexpectedly. Additional information can be obtained with the equipment as well by program questions that the patients can answer to identify any medical issues that may arise from day to day.
“It is peace of mind that your loved one is being monitored seven days a week,� said Caselas.
Another piece of equipment Foothills VNA will soon be utilizing is a bladder scan. Purchased with money granted from the Auxiliary of Community Health, the bladder scan is an ultrasonic device used to measure the volume of liquid in the bladder non-invasively. Previously this could only be checked by catheterizing a patient, which can cause pain, discomfort and possibly infection, said Caselas.
Another advanced technology system that Foothills has introduced this past year is the Point-of-Care Clinical Laptop System.
“Laptop computers can now be taken right into the house to do all of the assessments and nurses notes,� said Caselas.
Foothills VNA provides a wide variety of services, including pediatric and maternal/child health care, wound, ostomy and continence care, IV therapy, hospice services, community vaccination and screening programs, therapy services, as well as many other home-care services.
“Anyone can make a referral for our services. Typically they come from hospitals, nursing homes and physicians,� said Caselas. “Individuals or family members can call for our help. We will get an order from the physician, do an assessment and tell them the services we can provide.�
Cost, always a concern with medical care, is not something that patients should worried about at Foothills VNA, according to Caselas.
“Over 99 percent of our patients pay nothing out of pocket for services from us,� she said. “We accept whatever Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance reimburses us. We also accept all patients regardless of their ability to pay due to our mission and our involvement in the community.�
Depending on a patient’s financial situation, there are different programs available that a medical social worker through Foothills will coordinate.
Foothills VNA is a state licensed, Medicare certified, CHAP accredited facility. For more information on the programs offered and the criteria for service, call 860-379-8561.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.