Boca Raton Regional Hospital - Monthly Health Screenings at BHH

Yesterday Boca Helping Hands was exceptionally thankful that the team from Boca Raton Regional Hospital's Community Outreach was onsite! When a client who had recently had a pacemaker placed complained of 2 days’ worth of chest pains, Dr. Alan G. Stern didn’t hesitate to get 911 on the phone immediately!

“You never know when somebody is having chest pains if it’s their heart or not their heart,” said Dr. Stern. “The issue with him is that he had a heart history so it’s concerning. It may be related to his previous surgery, it may not be... why take a chance on that.”

With this particular client, this wasn’t his first time utilizing Boca Raton Regional Hospital's Community Outreach as a resource. Since he had a Health Screening back in May, Community Health Educator Patrick Mahaney, RD LDN believes he knew he could come to BHH when he started feeling so poorly.

“I think he came here today because he knew that there were resources here, and he knew he was feeling bad,” Mahaney shared. “Even though he came in here and didn’t want to say ‘help me, I’m not feeling well’, on some level there was probably a thought process there that ‘somebody is going to realize that I’m not feeling well and help me.”

Mahaney hopes yesterday’s incident can be an opportunity to reconnect with the client. He plans on following up with his post-acute care while also making him fully aware of the resources available to him adding, “hopefully we’ll be able to help him better understand his resources so this doesn’t happen again.”

Although these Health Screenings are meant to create a conversation about healthcare needs and the resources available to our clients, we’re so thankful the team was here to handle such an urgent situation.