Celebrating Life One
Written by Ken St. Onge
Monday, 31 March 2008
CORPORATE ACHIEVEMENT: Kimberly Harmon, founder and CEO of Harmon Home Health
To her, a single hug from her husband was the best gift Patricia M. Healey ever received.
For three years, she watched as her husband battled an aggressive form of a rare viral disease — Gillian-Barre Syndrome — which had quickly taken away the mobility of 67-year-old Edward J. Healey, leaving him a quadriplegic who required a respirator to breathe.
Slow Progress
He made only gradual improvement in the first several years after being stricken by the disease. But in 2007, a certified nursing aide from Harmon Home Health began working with him at the Millbury treatment facility he was living.
It was hours of work each day. He was unable to move when the therapy started.
But in short order, the therapy paid off when, one morning earlier this year, Patricia Healey walked into her husband’s
room for her daily visit.
“He looked at me and said, ‘come here,’ ” Patricia said. “And then he reached up and put his arms around me and gave me a kiss. It was the best present anyone’s ever given me.”
She attributes her husband’s quick, recent progress to the intense effort and dedication of the entire staff of Harmon Home Health.
Healey, a former nurse, said she credits the group with helping turn around her husband’s life.
Many Worcester-area residents tell a similar story about the dedication and high quality of care given by the barely 2-year-old private home health care company based in Worcester.
The organization was founded in the summer of 2006 by Kimberly M. Harmon, a former nurse with a background in community health who wanted to start a health care company that was “a little unique.”
“We have a philosophy here: celebrate life,” she said. “It’s something I believe very strongly in. I wanted to remain true to my integrity and ethics, and that was a big part of starting my own agency from scratch.”
It has resonated with the community and grown very quickly.
Since Harmon Home began taking patients in September 2006, the for-profit Harmon Home Health has grown to a 70-employee operation that offers a wide range of services: from care giving and companionship, to nursing, to homemaking to end of life care. It even has its own medical director — an uncommon position in a home health agency.
Building A Team
But uncommonness is something CEO Harmon feels very strongly about. It’s something the community has responded to wholeheartedly.
Harmon says a key ingredient for the quick success she’s made with her new company lies in the way she approaches hiring caregivers.
“I’m very selective, and I try to look for unique characteristics in the team I build. I really want people who complement each other, so that when they’re put together, it becomes a successful team,” Harmon said.
But the emotional center of that team is the energy and philosophy of its founder.
“Kim has laughed and cried with her patients, and most importantly, she supports them from their first step to the wee hours of the night when she is comforting a hospice patient in an end of life situation,” said Lydia Oquendo, a home health aide, and 2007 Health Care Hero award winner.
Added colleague and lifelong friend Angela Pezzano: “She is a wonderful example of how all nurses should be in the industry.” It’s a praise leveled often by patients and their families.
“Kim is an extraordinary, caring individual who provides enthusiasm, passion and professional support to everyone she deals with,” said Charles A. Polachi Jr., who nominated her for the award after watching Harmon’s team administer care for his uncle.
Andrew Pawlowicz, vice president of Harmon Home Health, said he sees this every day in the way Kimberly Harmon relates to clients.
“She establishes a personal connection with each patient” and helps “find the best set of resources possible to maximize the well being of a person,” he said.
“Her standards of ethics, quality and integrity are so high, that those of us who have had the opportunity to work with her raise our own,” he added.
Claudia Dexter, office coordinator at Harmon Home Health said, “I can only hope that Kim Harmon is a symbol of our future in nursing and health care. Through her example she is both a teacher and student of life who inspires nurses to be the best they can be.”
51 Union Street Suite 202
Worcester MA 01608
508-791-5600 / 1-877-CARE-414