Lindsey Crouch

Caring, Helping, Teaching

by Melissa McCance

After a serious illness, a significant injury, or the worsening of a chronic condition, home health care can be a lifeline to managing your situation. Lindsey Crouch, Director of Home Care & Durable Medical Equipment for Hillsdale Hospital, heads a team of skilled providers who are ready to help with a variety of issues.

A lifelong Jonesville resident, Lindsey was first employed at County National Bank. Later on, she decided to join the nursing profession and completed her RN in 2010. Lindsey was an investments specialist at CNB and found she enjoyed teaching her customers and helping them understand what they found difficult to navigate. They often shared details about their health problems, so, when she wanted a career change that would still be a helping position, she realized that this was another way to assist people with their life challenges.

She initially worked at the McGuire and MacRitchie Skilled Nursing Facility at night with long-term and rehabilitation patients, followed by a time of handling admissions and discharge planning. Her past experience with unraveling complex issues for people came into play there as part of her responsibilities involved helping patients understand their Medicare benefits and coverage.

After coming to Hillsdale Home Care in 2019, Lindsey started as intake coordinator and then became the clinical supervisor shortly afterward. When she assumed the role of director in 2023, she was responsible for overseeing and coordinating multiple services all dedicated to helping people.

The home care staff assists patients with understanding the next steps in their recovery. This can include understanding insurance, the importance of follow-up appointments and various therapies, signs of infection to watch for, what circumstances could require a trip to the hospital, etc. Patient education is essential and also covers medications (what they’re taking, why, how to manage them) and their disease process to give a clear picture of what to expect. They provide caregiver teaching in areas like wound care to prevent infection and how to move the patient safely.

Besides Lindsey, Hillsdale Home Care has field nurses who are skilled in wound care, IV medication administration, and provide patient/caregiver education to improve patient outcomes. There are two office support staff, and a team of talented, caring therapists in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.

Another part of the continuum of post-acute care encompassed by Lindsey’s position is centered at Hillsdale Home Oxygen and focuses on durable medical equipment. This can include providing home oxygen, CPAP and BiPAP devices, concentrators, and nebulizers as well as teaching the proper use and care of these items. In addition, they stock wound care supplies, mobility aids, and orthotics. The staff includes an office coordinator, a CPAP specialist, an oxygen delivery technician, and a wound care and orthotics specialist.

In addition to overseeing the staff at Hillsdale Home Care and Hillsdale Home Oxygen, Lindsey reviews all patient assessments to ensure that they match the documentation. Her administrative duties encompass budgeting, strategic planning, and a range of meetings, doing what’s necessary to keep things running effectively and efficiently. She was happy to report that at their accreditation survey by the Community Health Accreditation Partner in January, both Hillsdale Home Care and Hillsdale Home Oxygen performed exceptionally well.

Lindsey believes in a team approach to providing care for the patients served by her departments:

“I’m building relationships with case managers in our community and between my departments so we can work together and provide a better, more cohesive patient experience. I oversee quality improvement plans for my department. Hillsdale Home Care has goals of improving patient satisfaction and reducing hospital readmissions. We are one of the highest-rated Home Health Agencies in our area. Part of Hillsdale Home Oxygen’s quality plan involves tracking and identifying unmet needs for our patients. When a patient or provider asks for an item we don’t have, we look into how that need can be met.”

When asked what she finds especially satisfying about her job, Lindsey replied,

Being here for people in our community who really need our services. When people are discharged from the hospital, they’re often weaker prior to going in. They have a lot of new information— new medications, new appointments, people they’re supposed to go see, and a lot of them don’t know where to start. Many don’t have family or caregivers in the area to help them. Within 48 hours of being notified of a need, our clinicians are at their homes, helping them with those things, teaching them in smaller bites that are easier to understand and absorb.

Among the challenges for home care in the area can be a lack of resources such as transportation to get to follow-up appointments or to the wound care or pain clinics. It can be difficult for patients to follow instructions from their medical team because they don’t have the funds for quality food or prescriptions. In addition, Lindsey says there’s a real need in our area for more caregivers, more readily available transportation, and community education about the existing type and range of services and how to access them.

Lindsey is as busy at home as she is at work. Married for 18 years, she and her husband have four children between the ages of five and eleven. Her hobbies include painting and remodeling houses with her husband. The Crouch family are rock hounds and enjoy trips to the shores of Michigan to collect rocks they bring home to tumble.

We are fortunate to have the home care services in place that our area enjoys and especially fortunate to have a caring, dedicated person like Lindsey Crouch in charge.

Hillsdale Home Care serves patients in Hillsdale County and surrounding areas. You can reach them at (517) 439-5740 from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.