The Speech language pathologist (SLP) evaluates patients for any communication, cognitive-linguistic and swallowing difficulties. Their role is to help maximize the patient's ability to understand language and effectively express themselves They will develop and teach strategies to help patients compensate for difficulties with memory, attention, problem-solving, and reasoning.
If patients have a swallowing problem, our highly trained clinicians will assess several different aspects of swallowing and help develop approaches for the safest and most appropriate type of nutrition. Many of our speech language pathologists have received board certification in swallowing and swallowing disorders. We offer state-of-the-art, evidence-based assessment and treatment for speech and swallowing issues.
In this segment, Erin M. McCarthy, M.S, spotlights the multidisciplinary team of experts at Rochester Regional Health and discusses how the specialists in the Rochester Regional Health Neurosciences Institute work together to treat patients.
Selected Podcast
Speech Pathology in the Hospital Setting
Featured Speaker:
Erin M. McCarthy, MS
Erin McCarthy is the Speech Language Pathology Supervisor in the Acute Care Division at Unity Hospital, one of the five hospitals within Rochester Regional Health. She’s a board certified specialist in swallowing and swallowing disorders. Transcription:
Speech Pathology in the Hospital Setting
Bill Klaproth (Host): May is better speech and hearing month and today we spotlight the multidisciplinary experts at Rochester Regional Health and talk about how the specialists at the Rochester Regional Health Neurosciences Institute work together to treat patients. With us is Erin McCarthy, she is the Speech-Language Pathology supervisor in the Acute Care Division at Rochester Regional Health. She is a board certified specialist in swallowing and swallowing disorders. Erin, thank you so much for your time today. So what are the main disorders you treat at the Neurosciences Institute?
Erin M. McCarthy (Guest): Well good morning, thank you for having me Bill. The main disorders that we will see with our patients who are referred to our service include patients who have had an acute stroke, patients who have been in some sort of accident and potentially have had a traumatic brain injury. We primarily will see patients especially in the acute care facilities for assessment and treatment of swallowing and swallowing disorders so we’ll get a lot of patients who are referred to us who have had an acute pneumonia process or recurrent pneumonia process. Potentially they come in with complaints of difficulty swallowing, poor nutritional status. And so we’ll be referred and get involved in order to assess their swallowing, their ability to safely and adequately take nutrition by mouth, and then if there’s any deficiency in their swallowing mechanisms we assess that formally and then we create goals for a therapy plan to try and treat that disorder. We see patients throughout the hospital, we’ll see them in the emergency rooms, on the medical surgical floors, we’ll be with them in the ICU. And then once they stabilize and they get ready for transfer and they potentially need to go on for some ongoing therapy they may be transferred to our inpatient rehab center, which is the Golisano NeuroRehab Center here at Unity Hospital or they can go onto a skilled nursing facility for ongoing care or potentially just directly to our outpatient facility.
Bill: And what would a typical treatment plan look like?
Erin: Well it kind of changes from patient to patient depending on their needs. Again specifically you know let’s take a patient who’s had an acute stroke. They’ll come in and depending on their issues and where in the brain the stroke has impacted their abilities we can see them for not only swallowing assessment and follow-up treatment but then we might also need to assess their speech and language abilities, their cognition, problem solving, what’s their functionality for going home and what’s their need for ongoing rehab therapy. Between our acute care hospitals, especially Rochester General and Unity Hospital, those patients who are transferred to our Golisano NeuroRehab Center we work very closely with that team to ensure that there’s a continuity of care, there’s communication of goals and their long term goal process to make sure that the patient is getting the most comprehensive care possible.
Bill: And, can you tell me who is part of the team, including support staff, to guide the patient through their care experience?
Erin: Sure. So in the acute care setting speech pathology can work with just about every single discipline and provider that you could think of. So we work with neurologists, pulmonologists, otolaryngologists, gastroenterologists, respiratory therapists, the hospitalists, nursing certainly is a huge part of our care plan with our patients, certainly the patients and their caregivers, their family members, patient care techs. And then once they move on to more of like an inpatient acute rehab setting like the Golisano Center, they have PT, OT, speech, neuropsychology, nursing again, they’ll have recreational therapy that interacts with patients and with their service. So it’s really a very comprehensive team that kind of looks at the patient, assesses what they need, and we treat the patient as a whole, we don’t just treat them according to our individual discipline and what their needs are.
Bill: Very comprehensive. And you mentioned coordination of care. How does your team all work together then to achieve positive outcomes for your patients?
Erin: You know I think that our team has developed a really nice rapport with one another. I think that our communication styles certainly support patient care management and making sure that the patient is able to achieve their goals that they need to. I know that in an acute care setting my college and I are constantly talking to the providers, talking to nursing, talking to the patient and their family members, talking with the different therapists whether it be physical or occupational or respiratory therapy to make sure that the patient achieves their goals and moves through the system. We attend daily rounds that they have on the different medical surgical floors and then I attend a weekly high risk care management rounds to talk about those patients who might have a little bit more challenging of a case to make sure that all the team members are on board with what the patient needs and how we can safely move them through the acute care process. And then I certainly know that at Golisano Rehab Center, you know all of the different disciplines are constantly talking with one another. They have twice weekly team rounds, they involve the patient, they involve their family members, their care teams to ongoing discuss what is going on with the patient and how their progressing through therapy.
Bill: And when it comes to speech and hearing, can you tell us about the services you offer and the people on the team?
Erin: Sure. Well it’s primarily speech-language pathology that we have in the medical setting. We do not employ any audiologists here at the hospitals or at the Golisano Center or even outpatient. But we again speech-language pathology most times people will think about speech pathology, oh they’re teaching people how to talk again. They always kind of think about us in regards to children and working on articulation and language development. But in the medical setting we work primarily with patients who have difficulty swallowing which is called dysphagia and that is a significant bulk of our case load. So we’ll work with those patients again who might have some difficulty swallowing, they’re not able to get adequate nutrition in. We need to see them if they’re having difficulty swallowing, if we think that they’re aspirating or they’re taking food or liquid into their lungs, if they have recurrent pneumonia. So we’ll work with them and assess them and treat them accordingly. And then certainly their speech and language abilities as well. Potentially they have some aphasia after a stroke where they’re unable to express themselves, they’re unable to comprehend what’s being said to them at the conversational level, potentially they have difficulty reading or writing or comprehension of those modalities, problem solving, cognitive impairments. And so we work with the patients on all of those different things. Because, again, our goal is the same as the patient’s goal, to get them home, to get them functional, and to get them back to their daily lives. So we really work with the patients to try and increase their functionality and get them as close to discharging home as they were prior to coming into the hospital.
Bill: And Erin if you could wrap it up for us. What else do we need to know about the Health Neurosciences Institute at Rochester Regional Health?
Erin: I think that this is a really unique department and a very comprehensive one. Again, we really tend to look at the patient as a whole. We interact with all of the different providers and all of the different disciplines to not just treat the patient speech and language difficulties or their cognitive impairments or their swallowing difficulties but we really take everything into account. We take into account their social histories and their prior functional level of abilities and we want to get them back to that. We are a very comprehensive and cohesive team and I think that just getting the word out there so that the providers know and the hospitalists know and everybody knows that we are very valuable department that can help your patient move through the healthcare system and get them back to their prior level of functioning.
Bill: Treating the patient as a whole, very important. And thank you so much for your time and talking with us today, Erin. You’re listening to Rock Your Health Radio with Rochester Regional Health. For more information, you can go to RochesterRegional.org. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
Speech Pathology in the Hospital Setting
Bill Klaproth (Host): May is better speech and hearing month and today we spotlight the multidisciplinary experts at Rochester Regional Health and talk about how the specialists at the Rochester Regional Health Neurosciences Institute work together to treat patients. With us is Erin McCarthy, she is the Speech-Language Pathology supervisor in the Acute Care Division at Rochester Regional Health. She is a board certified specialist in swallowing and swallowing disorders. Erin, thank you so much for your time today. So what are the main disorders you treat at the Neurosciences Institute?
Erin M. McCarthy (Guest): Well good morning, thank you for having me Bill. The main disorders that we will see with our patients who are referred to our service include patients who have had an acute stroke, patients who have been in some sort of accident and potentially have had a traumatic brain injury. We primarily will see patients especially in the acute care facilities for assessment and treatment of swallowing and swallowing disorders so we’ll get a lot of patients who are referred to us who have had an acute pneumonia process or recurrent pneumonia process. Potentially they come in with complaints of difficulty swallowing, poor nutritional status. And so we’ll be referred and get involved in order to assess their swallowing, their ability to safely and adequately take nutrition by mouth, and then if there’s any deficiency in their swallowing mechanisms we assess that formally and then we create goals for a therapy plan to try and treat that disorder. We see patients throughout the hospital, we’ll see them in the emergency rooms, on the medical surgical floors, we’ll be with them in the ICU. And then once they stabilize and they get ready for transfer and they potentially need to go on for some ongoing therapy they may be transferred to our inpatient rehab center, which is the Golisano NeuroRehab Center here at Unity Hospital or they can go onto a skilled nursing facility for ongoing care or potentially just directly to our outpatient facility.
Bill: And what would a typical treatment plan look like?
Erin: Well it kind of changes from patient to patient depending on their needs. Again specifically you know let’s take a patient who’s had an acute stroke. They’ll come in and depending on their issues and where in the brain the stroke has impacted their abilities we can see them for not only swallowing assessment and follow-up treatment but then we might also need to assess their speech and language abilities, their cognition, problem solving, what’s their functionality for going home and what’s their need for ongoing rehab therapy. Between our acute care hospitals, especially Rochester General and Unity Hospital, those patients who are transferred to our Golisano NeuroRehab Center we work very closely with that team to ensure that there’s a continuity of care, there’s communication of goals and their long term goal process to make sure that the patient is getting the most comprehensive care possible.
Bill: And, can you tell me who is part of the team, including support staff, to guide the patient through their care experience?
Erin: Sure. So in the acute care setting speech pathology can work with just about every single discipline and provider that you could think of. So we work with neurologists, pulmonologists, otolaryngologists, gastroenterologists, respiratory therapists, the hospitalists, nursing certainly is a huge part of our care plan with our patients, certainly the patients and their caregivers, their family members, patient care techs. And then once they move on to more of like an inpatient acute rehab setting like the Golisano Center, they have PT, OT, speech, neuropsychology, nursing again, they’ll have recreational therapy that interacts with patients and with their service. So it’s really a very comprehensive team that kind of looks at the patient, assesses what they need, and we treat the patient as a whole, we don’t just treat them according to our individual discipline and what their needs are.
Bill: Very comprehensive. And you mentioned coordination of care. How does your team all work together then to achieve positive outcomes for your patients?
Erin: You know I think that our team has developed a really nice rapport with one another. I think that our communication styles certainly support patient care management and making sure that the patient is able to achieve their goals that they need to. I know that in an acute care setting my college and I are constantly talking to the providers, talking to nursing, talking to the patient and their family members, talking with the different therapists whether it be physical or occupational or respiratory therapy to make sure that the patient achieves their goals and moves through the system. We attend daily rounds that they have on the different medical surgical floors and then I attend a weekly high risk care management rounds to talk about those patients who might have a little bit more challenging of a case to make sure that all the team members are on board with what the patient needs and how we can safely move them through the acute care process. And then I certainly know that at Golisano Rehab Center, you know all of the different disciplines are constantly talking with one another. They have twice weekly team rounds, they involve the patient, they involve their family members, their care teams to ongoing discuss what is going on with the patient and how their progressing through therapy.
Bill: And when it comes to speech and hearing, can you tell us about the services you offer and the people on the team?
Erin: Sure. Well it’s primarily speech-language pathology that we have in the medical setting. We do not employ any audiologists here at the hospitals or at the Golisano Center or even outpatient. But we again speech-language pathology most times people will think about speech pathology, oh they’re teaching people how to talk again. They always kind of think about us in regards to children and working on articulation and language development. But in the medical setting we work primarily with patients who have difficulty swallowing which is called dysphagia and that is a significant bulk of our case load. So we’ll work with those patients again who might have some difficulty swallowing, they’re not able to get adequate nutrition in. We need to see them if they’re having difficulty swallowing, if we think that they’re aspirating or they’re taking food or liquid into their lungs, if they have recurrent pneumonia. So we’ll work with them and assess them and treat them accordingly. And then certainly their speech and language abilities as well. Potentially they have some aphasia after a stroke where they’re unable to express themselves, they’re unable to comprehend what’s being said to them at the conversational level, potentially they have difficulty reading or writing or comprehension of those modalities, problem solving, cognitive impairments. And so we work with the patients on all of those different things. Because, again, our goal is the same as the patient’s goal, to get them home, to get them functional, and to get them back to their daily lives. So we really work with the patients to try and increase their functionality and get them as close to discharging home as they were prior to coming into the hospital.
Bill: And Erin if you could wrap it up for us. What else do we need to know about the Health Neurosciences Institute at Rochester Regional Health?
Erin: I think that this is a really unique department and a very comprehensive one. Again, we really tend to look at the patient as a whole. We interact with all of the different providers and all of the different disciplines to not just treat the patient speech and language difficulties or their cognitive impairments or their swallowing difficulties but we really take everything into account. We take into account their social histories and their prior functional level of abilities and we want to get them back to that. We are a very comprehensive and cohesive team and I think that just getting the word out there so that the providers know and the hospitalists know and everybody knows that we are very valuable department that can help your patient move through the healthcare system and get them back to their prior level of functioning.
Bill: Treating the patient as a whole, very important. And thank you so much for your time and talking with us today, Erin. You’re listening to Rock Your Health Radio with Rochester Regional Health. For more information, you can go to RochesterRegional.org. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.