For many families, navigating long‑term pediatric home health can feel overwhelming. While cost and access continue to drive negative sentiment, the complexity of the U.S. health care system remains a consistent and growing frustration with consumers and care providers alike. Through our expanded home‑based pediatric services, we’re strengthening access to reliable, long‑term nursing care for families who have traditionally struggled to find consistent support. That’s where Stephanie’s story comes in.
For more than 30 years, Stephanie Melancon has dedicated her career to caring for children, beginning in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, she moved on from hospital-based care to work with home health provider LHC Group, where she built one of the most impactful pediatric programs in Southeast Louisiana. LHC Group is now a part of Optum’s Home and Community Care Delivery business.
What started with just 10 patients and a handful of nurses has grown into a program serving nearly 190 medically complex children, supported by more than 250 nurses across the region. “We cover basically all of Southeast Louisiana,” Stephanie explained. “These are children who are ventilator or tracheostomy dependent, and it is ICU-level care, one-on-one, in the home.”
The big picture: Through dedicated pediatric home health resources, we’re expanding access to compassionate long-term care for children with complex medical conditions who often need 24/7 support.
Support that strengthens families
The scope of care is extraordinary. Many families need nurses around the clock to live and work while ensuring their child’s safety. “Some of our cases are 168 hours a week. That is 24/7 care,” she said. “Most families get at least 84 hours a week, 12 hours a day, so parents can go to work during the day or sleep at night.”
Why it matters: Thanks to medical advancements and dedicated nurses, children with lifelong conditions like cerebral palsy or spinal muscular atrophy can live longer, healthier lives. “These kids are thriving,” Stephanie said.
This program offers long-term care that enhances the services of traditional home health, with ongoing support that helps children and families thrive for years – even lifetimes.
What's more: Providing ICU‑level care in the home can significantly reduce avoidable hospitalizations, lowering total cost of care for families and the system.
“Our patients come and stay for years. Kids I started with at age two or three are now teenagers,” she shared. This longevity allows nurses to build bonds that go beyond the patient to the entire family. Parents find support in balancing work and caregiving, and siblings often benefit from the stability a nurse provides.
Our role is to remove barriers, so families can focus on what matters most — helping their children grow, learn, and thrive.
Beyond medical expertise, nurses often become part of the family. They decorate casts for holidays, attend school events, and even join children at Mardi Gras parades or backyard pools, ventilators and all. The presence of a trusted nurse means that families can live more fulfilling lives, where joy and connection are not lost to medical challenges.
For Stephanie, this work is deeply personal. She spent two decades in the NICU. Now, in her current role as a home health nurse, she still sees some of the same patients she cared for back then as fragile infants. They’re now adults, and many are thriving thanks to the continuity of care she helped make possible. “We are not just saving the patient,” she said. “We are saving lives all around.”
The bottom line: Her journey from the NICU to home and community care reflects a broader truth: compassionate, consistent, and skilled care transforms lives. In Southeastern Louisiana, families facing some of the hardest medical realities know they are not alone, thanks to Stephanie and the dedicated team she has built.
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