The best part is spending time with your patients. Following their progress and seeing them improve.
By far the worst part is the enormous amount of paperwork that takes hours to complete. As an Rn in the field it is not worth the pay for me.
Get your feet wet In the hospital setting first get experience before you put yourself in jeopardy of losing your hard earned license
The best part is that you get to spend time with your patients one/on-one and that you generally work days, M-F with on-call maybe once every 4-6 weeks.
The worst parts are that you are never finished charting. You still have work to do when you get home, plus you have to call your patients and schedule your visits for the next day. Expect your schedule to change at the last minute while you’re out seeing patients.
The other negative is that you will travel hundreds of miles each week- either in your own personal car - or if lucky - in a company car. Probably 600-700 miles or more every week.
The patient is allowed to remain in their own home environment. The downside is the travel into unknown areas for the staff, in short safety for staff all hours and all shifts, however it is worth the risk to help the patients.
Home health is very gratifying. The extremely low pay is a down fall. It’s unfortunate that many nurses are now getting out of it due to the pay.
The best aspect in my opinion is the flexibility of scheduling your day. I enjoyed being independent. The downside was traveling for me. Also you need to be an excellent clinician as there is no one to bounce things off of while in the field.
Best Aspects: 1:1 patient care
Worse Aspects: loss of some learned clinical skills
The best part is seeing the patients in their own environment, how they live day to day and help them where they are. The worst part is the constant documentation, sometimes the hours and if they decline I feel as though you see it more rapidly.
On of the best aspects is being able to see a patient in their environment. I think patients feel they have more control and input in their care. One if the worst aspects is all the driving involved. There is wear and tear on your body as well as your vehicle.
Chasing patients.
Just a little note that I'm an RN for 46yr. and NOT 6yr. How they got that number is beyond me.
The best thing about homecare, if you have had lots of Hospital experience, is that with a vast knowledge and experience, you can make accurate decisions, you are aware of homecare aides and their experience and know when to test skills and questions to ask when visiting patient and caregiver. You will know when a patient is not being treated accurately in the Hospital when transferred for a fall or other injury. The cons are that some homecare Agencies that won't pay for milage, car expenses for using your own car or for the use of your private phone. This is how they get rich and you get poor. Milage adds up and with the price of gas, milage must be paid to the RN Supervisor or DON that is making the 60 day visits. Another con is foreign caregivers who have no respect for the visiting RN and in order to work any way that they want to, without correction, will demonize the Supervisor to the Agency. Many think they "do not need Supervision" because they have been doing it for many years, but many have poor or no skills and the Agency will still hire them. This puts the RN's license at risk.
The best part.of being a home health burse is the autonomy and ability to make ypur own schedule. The worst is the amount of charting and where I worked the amount of requires overtime and on call, which meant that you worked like a slave for the weekend.
