Innovative healthcare provider celebrates 10 years of service

“Community Paramedic Marilee Bradford checks on Betty Katsma during home visit”

A Grand Rapids-based healthcare provider is helping reduce patients’ trips to the hospital or urgent care by treating them at home.

TANDEM365 is a 24/7 health management organization that focuses on people with advanced stages of illness or chronic diseases that lead to multiple emergency room visits or hospital stays.

CEO Teresa Toland says the goal is to treat them at home before issues snowball.

A lot of times, people have not known anything but to go to the emergency room or to unnecessary hospitalizations that are really just a result of no acting quickly enough to changes in their health.”

TANDEM’S preventative approach centers around a team who keeps health issues from escalating into full-blown emergencies.

“Nurses and social workers and paramedics and medical assistants – they all work in a team as a team to make sure we wrap services around an individual, keeping them safe and secure so they can stay in their home.”

81-year-old Betty Katsma is one of those individuals. She has COPD, emphysema, and neuropathy in her legs, which used to have her in-and-out of the ER on a regular basis. She says TANDEM365 has been life-changing: she calls, and medical staff comes to her home to evaluate her.

“Then they call the doctor, and the doctor calls them back. If I called the doctor, he doesn’t know my vitals or anything, so he sends me to the med center and this way I don’t have to go. They’re right there for you and it’s such a blessing.”

A start-up in Grand Rapids ten years ago, Tandem365 now covers multiple counties and is expanding across the state.

TANDEM365 is a collaborative venture of Life EMS Ambulance, Sunset Senior Communities, Holland Home, Brio Living Services and BHI Senior Living.

Read full article at WGVUnews.org