Yes, but you have to have good clinical skills and time management. You don’t have another nurse to bounce ideas off of next to you. Assessments have to be amazing. It is a bit of paper work and at times can be a bit much but the money is normally worth it. I enjoy the no weekends or holidays unless on call.
It is a great job. You work when you want to, you can have permanent patient/patients. The pay is good. You work independently. You can do pedi, adult, or geriatrics. All charting is online. You do have to deal with families-the most difficult part for me.
Nursing schools generally dissuade you from exploring HH, but I've had great experiences! And my HH job pays more than my hospital job. It's a lot more laid back, you only have one patient (if you do private duty nursing), and if you're lucky to get a nice family, you'll never want to go back to the hospital. Most companies make sure you're comfortable before they throw you into a home, but you can always ask to shadow a nurse for a day or two beforehand. It's a great option for a new nurse or a burnt out nurse!
Home Health is a great career. I have worked for home health for much of my career. I started prior to the Medicare Oasis requirement. The Oasis documentation made the job more intense. Documentation often took longer than the actual patient care. I started in the field and ended my career as a VP of Nursing Services for a large home care company . You must have very good clinical skills and the ability to work independently. You must also be comfortable going into someone's home. Essentially home care is like a hospital without walls. The pay is good and competitive. Most companies are Medicare certified and therefore must adhere To be honest many clinicians leave homecare because of the extensive documentation.
I just started back in home health. The one issue I’m having is that I don’t have many skills for wound care. I’ve done dialysis for 30 years. You have to have an agency willing to help remind you how to do some of the skills. Here lies the problem.
I love working with homeopath and making my own schedule is a big plus.
Yes its rewarding
It depends what your position is. If you are the RN/DON it requires keeping evaluations, competency updated yearly for all home health aides. It requires constantly on call for emergencies, questions from aide, family members and some patients if they do not have dementia. Need to visit all patients and Supervise caregivers, every 60 days and call families and/or patients every 30 days. Needs continual checking on skills such as handwashing, observing transfers, bed baths, LHK, W/C footrests ability, etc. and ongoing questions to caregivers re: how the patient is doing. Need to skill caregivers when they are first applying to make sure they took the CHHA course at a legitimate Agency, because some Agencies bring in people in from other countries and don't do the 76hr. training that is required for the BON/CHHA license. They give them the answers to the test, send in the money and they get a CHHA license and know NOTHING. One girl asked me "What does the word temperature mean" and clearly was never taught how to take a temperature. Dealing with caregivers from other Countries becomes difficult at times, because they are told in some Countries that the USA doesn't take care of their elderly, so they think they are indispensable when they come to the USA and demand higher and higher wages. They have a network within their culture of caregivers and keep in constant contact with each other, comparing wages, jobs, degree of difficulty and what they are being paid, etc. They think if a patient is harder then watching them walk around, that they deserve higher wages and will desert a patient if someone offers more money and tries to steal them from their present patient/Agency. Not all but many have NO allegiance to their patient or the Agency they work for. They will also quit to work for a non-Agency patient if the money is higher and make up excuses, that they have a family emergency, or they have a ticket to take a plane the day after calling the Agency, just to get out of the house that they are doing live-in. Live-ins from some Countries are extremely difficult to Supervise and scold the patients because they don't understand dementia. A book could be written about the pros and cons of homecare and the various Countries that come to the USA for live-in work because of the amount of money that they receive for live-in work. The funny part is that they think the RN Supervisors and DON's aren't wise to their shrewdness.
I HAVE LOVED IT!!!
it is if you are patience with senior living care skills and can handle the mentality of their emotions and moods because most of the day (s) they were elderly abused when there not safety security camera(s) so you have to be patience.
