Meet Your Neighbor: Amie Peterson — Nurse practitioner champion for homebound patients

Aug 18, 2021 By CHUCK BALLARO 5 min read

Amie Peterson
PHOTO BY MICHAEL PISTELLA

Many years ago, doctors all over the country made house calls to their patients regardless of their age and condition. It was part of their job.

And just when you thought the art of home care had died, the pandemic came and brought this valuable service back.

The fact is that many patients have been unable to leave their homes, especially in Southwest Florida where the senior population is so high and the need of such services is great.

A North Fort Myers practitioner is among those who have come to the rescue for many of these homebound patients, ensuring that house calls are here to stay.

Amie Peterson, an adult nurse practitioner of Millennium Physicians Group at 3434 Hancock Bridge Parkway, was among 12 recognized as Home-Centered Care Institute’s Florida Champions (and one of three from Lee County) for their work treating homebound patients.

Peterson, who received the honor late last year, said she was shocked to be recognized, but that helping others, especially those who are older, is what she was made to do.

“I was also happy. This is my passion. I love house calls and most particularly my elderly patients,” Peterson said. “I am adamant about keeping them out of the hospital and I make myself as available as I can, that they know they’re better off back at home and aren’t alone. They have someone there they can call and rely on when they’re not feeling good.”

Peterson said the Home-Centered Care Institute is trying to advocate for the practitioners and let potential patients, and even the physicians for whom they work, know there are services available to them.

“They want to get the word out there are house call practitioners who offer these services for our aging population, especially here in Florida. We’re the prime market for that,” Peterson said.

Peterson was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio before coming to Florida at age 15 in 1985.

Peterson obtained her adult nurse practitioner license in 2005 from Florida Gulf Coast University and has worked in Lee County ever since.

After working in a hospital, she started work doing house calls in 2012, which she has continued to do.

Peterson said there are three different types of visits. There is the chronic, acute and transitional care visit. Chronic care is for those with chronic illness who need a closer eye on them to prevent an emergency room visit.

“These people may have pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and younger people who have muscular debilitating disease that limits them from getting to the office,” Peterson said.

Acute visits are for those who cannot make it to the doctor or walk-in clinic in person. They will give the health department a call and ask for someone to visit that patient, triage them and treat them if they can.

A transitional care visit comes after they return from the hospital where they are educated on their diagnosis, medications and are checked on to make sure they can cope back at home.

They are making health care more available by keeping those people out of the hospital and the ER, as well as making it more accessible, Peterson said.

The result has been that house calls have made a comeback. Numerous practitioners, and some doctors, have started their own practices. Medicare and reimbursement changes have also helped make healthcare more accessible for those who have to stay home.

Peterson said she cares for between five and seven patients at any given time, with variables being where they’re going to be and how far they have to travel.

Time is also a consideration. Transitional visits can take up to 90 minutes while a chronic visit can be finished in 20 or less. Those with acute cases could receive visits three or four days in a row, depending on the situation, Peterson said.

Overall, Peterson said her group is a large, forward moving group of providers who compassionately care about their patients. This was particularly important over the past 18 months, when the COVID-19 pandemic changed how everyone thought about healthcare.

Peterson said when the pandemic was at its peak, there was a shift going from the typical chronic and acute patients to the more transitional ones.

“When these patients were recovering and coming home from the hospital, it was our goal to keep them home. They were pretty sick when they came home with respiratory symptoms,” Peterson said. “We were overwhelmed with trying to keep them at home.”

Then, there were those who were sick with chronic illness whom they had been managing all along and who didn’t want to go to the hospital because they were afraid to go to the ER for fear of catching COVID.

“It was a bit of a shift. It was different, but we managed. I have a great team and we work together,” Peterson said. “It worked out well for all of us.”

Luis Cortes and Sheeja Kanacheril of Hope Healthcare were also recognized as Home-Centered Care Champions.

For more information about Home Centered Care, visit https://www.hccinstitute.org.

NFMNL

To reach CHUCK BALLARO, please email news@breezenewspapers.com