Cooperative hopes to make difference in seniors' health with 'Go Bags'

In April 2014, the nonprofit Cooperative for Senior Advocacy was founded to improve the health-care opportunities for senior citizens and their caregivers in Carroll County. Now, over two years later, the grass-roots group is preparing its introduction into the community with a newly created website and the launch of its Go Bag program.

"[The Go Bag] is a self-maintaining health record that becomes the personal property of the senior citizen," said Buck Harmon, president of the cooperative.

A reusable satchel, the Go Bag contains a senior's important medical information, such as insurance cards, the name and contact number of their primary care physician, a list of all allergies and current medications, as well as blank doctor forms to be filled out at every medical appointment. It is designed to go with an individual to every doctor or hospital visit.

The cooperative developed the Go Bag as a solution to what it identified as a major health-care issue for seniors: the lack of preparedness in the event of a health crisis.

"We started out realizing a need in the community," Harmon said. "Most senior citizens in Carroll County we have had contact with are not prepared for a visit to the hospital. And by that I mean, they do not have all the pertinent information together with regards to the drugs that they take, to their recent medical records, to their legal documents, power of attorney, mass directives — all the very important critical information that the hospital needs to make some type of diagnosis."

Without this critical information, Harmon said, the elderly can be left to wait extended periods of time while the hospital attempts to gather the information they need to make an assessment of their condition.

Vicki Ryan, a registered nurse and the owner/manager of Sunflower Hill, an assisted living facility in Westminster, has accompanied many of her senior residents to the hospital, and she said a visit to the emergency room was often stressful as patients waited ill while medical staff collected necessary health information.

"I had been a charge nurse at Carroll Lutheran Village for 12 years before I opened Sunflower. Just when you got to the hospital it was so confusing and things were getting lost, peoples meds list and information," she said.

Ryan, understanding first-hand the flaws in the healthcare system for the elderly, joined the coalition after reading an article about the group in the Carroll County Times.

"I knew that we needed something in Carroll County," Ryan said. "And I guess a year and a half ago there was an article in the front page and I was like, 'This is exactly what we need in this county. Exactly what we need.' So I called [Harmon] right up … I said 'When is your next meeting? I will be there.'"

Now, almost two years later, Ryan and the rest of the cooperative are preparing to introduce the organization and the Go Bags to the public.

Currently, the cooperative has 2,500 Go Bags ready to be distributed. Funded initially by Carroll Hospital and the Westminster American Legion, the coalition hopes to eventually find enough funds, through donations and grants, to increase the number of Go Bags to 35,000.

"We have made Go Bags, and we plan to distribute Go Bags to every senior citizen that wants one, free of charge, in Carroll County," Harmon said.

While the cooperative is eager to get a Go Bag in every Carroll County senior citizen's hand, the members do not want to hand them out without providing instructions on how to use them.

"We just don't want to give them the bag without sharing with them the message that goes along with the bag," said Dr. Peter Uggowitzer, vice president of the cooperative and a family physician based in Hampstead.

Presently, the cooperative is working on a distribution plan for the Go Bags. Members are hoping to utilize volunteers, along with their newly established website, at www.coopsenioradvocacy.com, to instruct recipients on how the Go Bag is designed to be used and the importance of having it with them during medical visits.

In addition to the Go Bags, the cooperative has also created a brochure. Titled "Seniors Be Prepared," the brochure instructs seniors on the items they need to have in the event of a health crisis or a hospital visit. It is currently available to the public in the Carroll Hospital emergency room and in all Carroll County senior centers.

"The brochure was the initial implementation into the community," Harmon said.

While the Go Bag and the brochure are physical tools the coalition has created to aid seniors, they are also working to improve health care for the elderly by building relationships with and bringing new ideas to the community.

"We've done things, without funding, that are actually beginning to make a difference. Things like making a connection between the [Carroll Hospital] and the McDaniel College," Harmon said.

The Center for the Study of Aging at McDaniel College, whose gerontology club will work on distributing the brochures as a service project, is also now working with the hospital to create continuing education for the hospital employees.

In addition to being instrumental in bringing the McDaniel aging program and hospital together, the cooperative was also responsible for initiating the idea of senior care emergency rooms to the Carroll Hospital.

"I lobbied directly with the hospital to get them to open the four geriatric emergency rooms that they have there now," Harmon said.

It was Harmon and Uggowitzer who first toured the geriatric emergency rooms at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, the first hospital on the East Coast to open a geriatric emergency room.

"We went [to visit Holy Cross Hospital] as a nonprofit. We took a tour and they shared all the information that they use to accomplish that geriatric emergency room environment," Harmon said. "When we came back, we presented this information to [Carroll Hospital]."

For Harmon and Uggowitzer, the need to educate and prepare seniors for a health crisis is personal. Both men dealt with the struggles of aging with their own elderly parents.

"All these things happened with our own parents, which made us realize the kind of situations the elderly are in," Uggowitzer said. "When it's actually happening to your own parents; to see what they are going through, you begin to think; you begin to ask questions.

As the cooperative grows, Harmon would like to keep working along with the hospital to continue enhancing health care for the elderly.

"We want to focus on working with the hospital specifically to make the rubber meet the road and really start to improve conditions for senior citizens in Carroll County and northern Baltimore County," Harmon said.

Debbie Pearl writes from Reisterstown and can be reached via email at debbie.pearl@yahoo.com.