Home care after a hospital stay: the first weeks at home in Boulder, CO

Questions worth asking before discharge

Discharge planning goes fast, and the questions you do not ask tend to become phone calls a week later. Write these down and ask them of the discharge planner or case manager before you leave: What medicines were changed, and which ones are new? When is the follow-up appointment, and with whom? What can this person do and not do at home — stairs, bathing, driving? What symptoms mean a call instead of a wait? Who do we call after hours?

In Boulder, most hospital stays route through Boulder Community Health's Foothills Hospital at 4747 Arapahoe Avenue. Its location page lists Emergency & Trauma, imaging, laboratory, surgery, maternity and rehabilitation services, and parking is free in the front surface lot and in two five-level garages — worth knowing when you are shuttling paperwork and a weak person between car and door. For veterans in the family, the VA Eastern Colorado health care system's main medical center is at 1700 North Wheeling Street in Aurora; confirm any closer clinic with the VA directly before you plan around one.

What the first days home look like

The first days are mostly ordinary: help getting washed and dressed, meals that actually get eaten, medicines taken at the right hours, laundry, a ride to the pharmacy. None of it is medical, and all of it is the work that keeps a recovery on track. Non-medical home care is built for this stretch — Colorado CareAssist is a non-medical agency, and our caregivers handle the daily tasks while the hospital's team handles the clinical side. Care can start with a free 20-minute phone consultation and a free in-home assessment, at the home or by video, with no obligation. A caregiver who has done this before also knows what to point out: a swollen ankle worth a phone call, a prescription the pharmacy still has not filled, a staircase the person is not ready for yet. You do not have to be the one watching for all of it.

Watch for the practical hazards: loose rugs on the walking route to the bathroom, night lights missing from the hallway, a shower without a bench or grab bar, an upside-down medicine list on the counter. Fix the route before you fix the schedule. And plan the appointments the way a small operation plans deliveries — one trip, one day, written on a single sheet on the fridge.

Meals while everyone is tired

Food is the first thing to slip when a household is in discharge mode, and Boulder has two ready answers. Meals on Wheels of Boulder provides meals and a daily well-being check to Boulder residents regardless of age or income, from its base at 3701 Canfield St. Volunteers deliver on weekday late mornings — listed as 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., check current hours when you enroll — with frozen meals available for weekends, which covers the stretched days around a follow-up appointment.

The daily well-being check is quietly the best part: a volunteer at the door each weekday sees whether the person is alright, whether supplies are holding, whether anything looks off. After a hospital stay, that is one more set of eyes that does not require a family member to drive across town.

Getting to follow-up appointments

The follow-up appointment is the hinge of the whole transition, and driving yourself is off the table for as long as the discharge papers say it is. Two paratransit options serve Boulder riders. Via Mobility Services Paratransit is a shared-ride service whose drivers escort riders door-through-door and assist on and off the vehicle; rides can be taken for medical appointments and therapy, and trips are scheduled ahead through Via's call center. RTD's Access-a-Ride is the ADA complementary service — reservations must be made one to seven days in advance and there is no same-day service, so the appointment date needs to go on the calendar as soon as it is known.

Both systems are built around accessibility: all RTD vehicles, including Access-a-Ride, accommodate wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, canes and crutches, and operators are trained to help with boarding and deboarding. If the person will attend physical therapy after surgery, ask the therapist's office which service most of their patients use — offices that book paratransit daily know the rhythms.

The same paratransit is what keeps ordinary life running once the appointment calendar thins out. Via lists personal needs, grocery shopping, social events, senior and recreation centers, adult day programs, and education, employment or volunteer sites among the reasons a rider books a trip. The errands are what quietly fail after a discharge, not the specialist visit. And when the question is about hospital paperwork rather than the ride, Foothills Hospital's own number is 303-415-7000.

Falls, fear of falling, and the long tail

Falls are the setback that sends people back to the hospital, and fear of falling is the quieter problem that shrinks a person's world to the couch. The Boulder County Area Agency on Aging runs healthy-aging programs that address fear of falling and ongoing health problems — a good next step once the surgical wound is healed and the person is cleared for more activity.

Boulder makes the boring part of recovery easy. The Boulder Creek Path runs 5.5 miles from Boulder Canyon on the west end to the Stazio Ballfields on the east, a multi-use path that lets the walking exercise be the same walk at the same hour every day, which is what a discharge plan actually asks for. Go with the person rather than sending them out with a good intention. A companion on the path is also the practical answer to the fear of falling the county's healthy-aging programs work on.

For the daily tasks between appointments, a few weeks of non-medical help covers most of the gap: morning routines, meals, laundry, rides, and the steady presence that keeps a person moving through the house instead of settling into the chair. If that sounds like your situation, the free in-home assessment is the place to start — we walk the house with you, at the home or by video, and build the schedule around the discharge plan your hospital gave you.

The standing offer, in the same words as every other page here: Colorado CareAssist is a family-owned, non-medical agency at $43 an hour in Boulder on our northern band, with a three-hour minimum per visit, live-in care at a flat $650 a day, and no long-term contract, because a recovery that goes well should not leave you locked into hours you no longer need. It starts with a free 20-minute phone consultation and a free in-home assessment, at the house or by video. Call (303) 757-1777.

Local resources in Boulder

• Boulder Community Health's Foothills Hospital is at 4747 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80303, phone 303-415-7000. Source
• Foothills Hospital's location page lists Emergency & Trauma, imaging, laboratory, surgery, maternity and rehabilitation services. Source
• Parking at Foothills Hospital is free in the front surface lot and in two five-level garages. Source
• The VA Eastern Colorado health care system's main medical center is at 1700 North Wheeling Street, Aurora, CO 80045. Source
• Meals on Wheels of Boulder is at 3701 Canfield St., Boulder, and provides meals and a daily well-being check to Boulder residents regardless of age or income. Source
• Meals on Wheels of Boulder delivers by volunteers on weekday late mornings (listed 10:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m.) with frozen weekend meals — check current hours at enrollment. Source
• Via Mobility Services Paratransit drivers escort riders door-through-door and assist them on and off the vehicle. Source
• Via rides can be taken for medical appointments, therapy, grocery shopping, social events and adult day programs. Source
• RTD Access-a-Ride reservations must be made one to seven days in advance and there is no same-day service. Source
• All RTD vehicles, including Access-a-Ride, accommodate wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, canes and crutches, and operators are trained to help with boarding and deboarding. Source
• The Boulder County Area Agency on Aging runs healthy-aging programs that address fear of falling and ongoing health problems. Source

More resources for Boulder families

• How to Choose a Home Care Agency in Boulder, CO
• Paying for Home Care in Boulder, CO