Mercy Fort Scott Home Health and Hospice continues to work with Integrity Home Care + Hospice to transition all home health and hospice services within the next several months. Last Thursday, leaders from Integrity met with the Mercy team in Fort Scott to provide an update and implementation timeline. The goal is to make a seamless transfer of all services complete by January 31, 2019.

In July, Mercy announced Integrity Home Care + Hospice would merge locally-based home health and hospice services. Once finalized, Mercy co-workers will change employment to Integrity.

“Not all health care happens in a hospital or a doctor’s office, said Becky Davied, Mercy Fort Scott Home Health and Hospice director. “Patients who head home after a surgery or serious illness often require some time to continue healing at home, and chronically-ill patients must manage their conditions at home daily.”

For patients in either situation, having quality health care in their home can be the key to living their best life.

“Our patients in southeast Kansas can find comfort in knowing they have one of the best home health and hospice teams caring for them,” Davied added.

For six of the past eight years, Mercy Fort Scott Home Health has received the HomeCare Elite award for being one of the most successful home care providers in the United States. The award recognizes the top 25 percent of agencies based on performance measures including quality of care, quality improvement, patient experience, best practices implementation and financial management.

As a partner, Mercy will become a shareholder of Integrity and a member of the board of directors. While the company’s name will remain Integrity Home Care + Hospice, the logo will include information about its partnership with Mercy. Together, the two systems will become an even stronger home care and hospice team to serve Bourbon County, Kansas, and Kansas residents within a 50 mile radius of Fort Scott.

“Home health and hospice care are important to the entire spectrum of health care services, said Reta Baker, Mercy Hospital Fort Scott president. “We want to reassure our current patients and the area residents that home health and hospice services will continue to operate just under a different name.”