Ann Casterlin, R.N., Vice President, Home Health Services

She knows that home is where the heart is and has vision to help our nurses provide the best care possible in the home setting

Ann Casterlin loves spending time with her children and grandchildren. So she understands how important it is for patients to heal at home surrounded by their loved ones.

“When you take care of patients in their own homes, you see them as they really are,” Casterlin says. “They’re focused and relaxed in their own environment and can listen and better understand what you’re teaching them about their health care needs.”

She graduated as an R.N. in 1972, and as the years progressed, she balanced raising her children, working full time and going to school to earn her bachelor’s of science degree in 1993 from the University of St. Francis, in Joliet, IL. Casterlin worked in the area of medical-surgical nursing for several years and spent 10 additional years as a critical care nurse. Early in her clinical nursing career, she had the opportunity to work as a public health nurse which planted the seed for future involvement in home health. She nurtured her passion for home health care as her clinical career progressed. When she went back to the home care industry, she had the opportunity and challenge of starting two home care agencies from the ground up for two large national organizations, later opening her own private home care agency and ultimately undertaking home health consulting work.

The combination of her entrepreneurial spirit and compassion for patients brought her to Lehigh Valley Home Health Services as its vice president in June 2000. “I thoroughly enjoy my role here at Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network because I’m involved in all phases of home health care,” Casterlin says. This includes home care, hospice, palliative care services, home infusion and our three retail pharmacies.

“We have such an important job—to continue the same quality of care started at the hospital and to tailor that care in the patient’s home,” she says. We usually care for more than 600 patients daily, and “we are often the last impression people have of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network and we strive to make it a very satisfying and positive patient/family centered experience.”

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