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02/13/2017 11:00 PMAs of mid-January Middlesex Hospital Homecare has a new executive director: Chester’s Allison Dowe. Dowe will bring more than 30 years of experience in finance and operations management in her new role with the hospital, where she has worked since 2008, most recently serving as director of business operations for the Department of Nursing, including Homecare, Hospice, and Palliative Care, the Center for Chronic Care Management, and the Wound & Ostomy Center. She is also a member of the board of directors for the Middlesex United Way and Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home.
“I landed in healthcare,” said Dowe, “but quickly my passion was ignited. It was a way for someone financial operations-oriented to give back.”
Dowe’s transition to this industry after a career that included time at Sotheby’s and with a Fortune 500 company after the birth of her first child. She has lived in Chester since the late ’90s.
“I was working in New York City, and I had had my first child, and we were thinking about having our second. We moved to Chester and we love it here,” said Dowe.
Her son is a junior at George Washington University, and her daughter is currently a senior at Valley Regional High School.
“I live in the community, so it is nice to be able to work in the community that you raised your kids in,” said Dowe. “At the same time as I was having my daughter, my grandmother, who I was very close to was aging, and really made me see the full cycle of care.”
She said her grandmother instilled in her the idea that charity begins at home, that it starts small and it spreads from there. This is the ideal that Dowe hopes to bring to her new position.
Middlesex Hospital Homecare is a department of the hospital that addressed needs including nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and aides for personal care. The department also provides palliative care—care for those diagnosed with chronic or eventually life threatening diseases—and hospice care.
“The goal for the hospital in terms of improvement include managing the population and working toward better outcomes for patients, while also managing costs,” said Dowe. “These are the two synergies I’m going to be working toward.”
Between homecare, hospice care, and palliative care, Middlesex Hospital Homecare serves 750 individuals in Middlesex county on a given day.
“I’m excited to take on this venture,” said Dowe. “As baby boomers age there will be more care needed. People want to be home. It’s the ideal solution for quality of life and it is cost effective.”
Dowe aims to focus on ways to provide needed services in people’s homes, and keep them out of hospitals and care facilities.
“It’s about building supports,” said Dowe, “keeping people thriving so that they maintain their quality of life, and supporting chronic disease better.”
Middlesex Hospital Homecare follows a medical model; it is not a caregiver or homemaker service, but, Dowe notes, those who choose to work in the field of home healthcare are compassionate.
Dowe also thinks that changing the perception of the service will help more people listen to what the options are as they age, and consider it more seriously when they are offered homecare as a medical service option.
“There’s a misnomer that we try to address when it comes to the public perception of ‘homecare,’” said Dowe. “We try to say ‘this is not your grandmother’s homecare’—this isn’t the nurse who comes by to sit with tea and cookies. We provide high tech medical care in the home.”
Those who are interested in learning more about the kinds of services provided by Middlesex Hospital Homecare can visit www.middlesexhospital.org/our-services/hospitalservices/homecare, or call 860-358-5600. Additionally, they can reach out to the department’s community liaison, Lori Orler, at 860-358-5739.