Since the launch of the Internet Hospital Home Care service at the Second Hospital of Shandong University, it has provided convenient and professional nursing services to numerous home-based patients in the urban area. Mrs. Chen (pseudonym), who lives on Beiyuan Street, suffered a stroke for over 20 days. Even after discharge, she still had a urinary catheter. Recently, she needed to have it replaced. However, due to the hot weather, Mrs. Chen had difficulty moving around, and her children were busy with work, making it challenging to go to the hospital. Therefore, she decided to try ordering home care through the Internet Hospital platform.
Nurse Zhang Xinyan, who received the assignment, is an outstanding nurse who has worked in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department of the Southern Campus for many years. When she arrived at the patient's home, she first inquired in detail about the condition. After a professional assessment, Zhang Xinyan determined that Mrs. Chen's bladder sphincter function had begun to recover. It was possible to consider removing the catheter and attempting to urinate on her own. She informed Mrs. Chen and her family of the assessment results, explained the entire procedure, obtained consent, and then removed the catheter, encouraging Mrs. Chen to urinate on her own.
At the outset, Mrs. Chen was quite nervous. However, with the patient guidance and encouragement from Nurse Zhang Xinyan, her anxiety gradually eased, and she successfully achieved independent urination. To prevent the risk of residual urine and urinary tract infections, after Mrs. Chen felt she had emptied her bladder, Zhang Xinyan used a simple method of temporary catheterization to measure a residual urine volume of 20ml, confirming Mrs. Chen's successful independent urination. Mrs. Chen happily exclaimed, "It's so much better without the catheter! I feel so much lighter!" In a joyful atmosphere, Zhang Xinyan provided Mrs. Chen and her family with disease-related rehabilitation guidance and nursing education, earning praise from Mrs. Chen and her family.
The goal of rehabilitation nursing is to promote patients' rapid recovery, enhance their self-care abilities, enable them to have a higher quality of life, and reintegrate into their families and society as soon as possible. Effective home-based rehabilitation care not only facilitates the restoration of patients' physical functions, alleviates chronic pain, and increases comfort but also can reduce healthcare costs and ease the financial burden on patients and their families.
As a designated institution for long-term care insurance, the Southern Campus of the Second Hospital of Shandong University (Shande Nursing Home in Jinan) actively provides various forms of home-based services, including home care, long-term care insurance "home care," and home care beds. These services effectively address the urgent needs of the people, allowing those who are homebound or in need of home-based nursing care to receive professional and convenient medical and caregiving services without leaving their homes.