St. Mary's Health Care System has received permission from the Georgia Department of Community Health to expand its home health care services into Franklin County, effective immediately.

"We are thrilled to offer home health care services in Franklin County," said Karen Joyce, director of St. Mary's Home Health Care/Hospice Services. "We have been providing hospice services in Franklin County for years, so we know the county well and love serving the people there. We're so glad we can offer the full continuum of our home care services to this wonderful community. We are fully staffed and accepting new patients immediately."

The expansion further enhances the continuum of care St. Mary's offers in Franklin County. Home care joins the emergency, inpatient and outpatient care offered by St. Mary's Sacred Heart Hospital, as well as Sacred Heart's HealthWorks industrial medicine program and a number of physician practices.

"We have a wonderful staff of nurses, therapists, social workers, home health aides and more to meet the needs of patients who are home-bound and require short-term, intermittent skilled care," Joyce said. "We provide care for patients with conditions ranging from congestive heart failure, to cancer, to recovery from joint replacement surgery."

Care is tailored to the individual needs of each patient, Joyce said. Services offered by St. Mary's Home Health Care include:

• Disease management and education

• Medical direction by a physician

• Nursing care

• Physical, occupational and speech therapy

• Telehealth monitoring

• Wound care and enterostomal nursing

• Medical social work

• Dietary counseling

• Home health aides