BARBARA MCINNIS HOUSE TOUR
In August a small group of social service staff took a tour of the Barbara McInnis house medical respite unit. What follows is an overview of what we learned.
McInnis house is operated by Health Care for the Homeless which has clinics throughout area – wherever one finds homeless people, including at Suffolk Downs (which employs horse grooms who usually sleep in stalls or tack rooms), and at hotels that serve as family shelters for the state.
Referrals
McInnis House is committed to simplifying and facilitating referrals from MGH and to taking an MGH patient every day. There is a McInnis House nurse screener at the MGH two days a week now and soon, three days a week. Currently that person is Hope Wilson and she carries an MGH pager. She currently goes to MGH on Tuesday and Thursday. She screens all homeless patients who are on the homeless census as well as any who are referred to McInnis House and have not made it to the census. (Eileen Hughes from Case Management has the case managers identify any of their patients who are homeless and to develop this census).
Main number: 857-654-1700; Admissions phone number: 857-654-1760; for weekend admissions use the administration number: 857-654-1840 (rev 5/12).McInnis House
- Does take pts. with MRSA and VRE
- Can take transgendered folks
Requires that patients be independent with ADLs- RNs have 18 pts, care is not provided at bed-side; patients must be able to go to clinic (per DPH license)
Population and Staffing
- McInnis House serves homeless people with a medical problem(s) that requires skilled care and/or a sheltered environment unavailable in the regular shelter system.
- They mainly serve men; but have a smaller unit of women- 18 beds out of total of 90
- Nursing on-site 24/7
- Patients are seen 3x/day by RNs, and every day by the medical provider able to bill insurance.
- Have a psychiatrist and CNS
- On-site pharmacy available during the day. On weekdays they want pts by 1pm; on weekends the pharmacy is only open until 11 a.m., so if a patient needs prescription drugs they need the patient to be admitted as early as possible to enable the physician to complete a history and physical and fax the prescriptions to the pharmacy before they close.
- If someone requires PT, OT they don’t offer these services onsite, but if the patient meets the criteria of “home-bound”, the hospital can/should arrange VNA services with McInnis house at the home- maximum of 3x/week.
Services
- Benefits case manager helps with getting people on benefits, get people started on housing search, but they don’t do ongoing housing advocacy.
- Do have AA groups on-site - but only 1x/week. The state requires anyone providing care in a facility to have a CORI; this is at odds with the anonymous nature of AA.
Resident Rights and Responsibilities
Philosophy- help clients succeed in their stay. Help rebuild self-reliance. Rules are clear at outset; they try to accommodate needs and deal with logistics that would discourage potential clients from being willing to stay.
- Residents do own laundry.
- No smoking inside, there is an outside courtyard where people can smoke.
- Must agree to be clean and sober both within the facility and when going out and returning to facility.
-Thanks to Sarah Ciambrone for guiding our tour and her help with this article.
09/07