Home Health Care

Home health care refers to supportive care provided to the patient at their home by healthcare professionals. The healthcare professional is called an aide worker, or the home healthcare provider. There are other terms that refer to this job, and which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions require the healthcare aide to be licensed by the state medical boards. But states such as California do not have such a requirement - anyone can start providing healthcare at home without license. This requires the patients and their family to be extra careful when employing a health care aide.

Other type of home health care jobs include home nursing, which is a visiting nurse who takes care of the medical needs of a patient at home. The home may be a private home, but is usually a home care center for the elderly.

Responsibilities of Personal Care Assistant

Personal care assistant is the overarching term used to refer to the health care providers who provide assistance and health care to their patients at home. Other terms for it are personal caregiver, personal care assistant, personal care attendant and home care aide.

The job involves taking care of the day to day living requirements of the patient, including the six basic daily living tasks. Called the six Activities of Daily Living (ADL). These tasks are: bathing, dressing, walking, transferring, eating and using the toilet. The personal caregiver is s required to help the patient with all or any of these tasks as needed by the patient.

Responsibilities of Home Nursing Home Nurses

Nursing homes are hospices where the elderly and other patients who require medical supervision live. Nurses care for the resident patients' medical needs - such as caring for them if they are suffering for Alzheimer's. They mostly play a supervisory role, though they also have to personally care for the needs of the patients. They also develop the patients' treatment plans, perform difficult and expert operations such as starting intravenous fluids and supervise personal care assistants in the care of the nursing home residents.

Responsibilities of Home Care Nurses

Home care nurses are also called visiting nurses. These nurses are registered nurses who have trained to take care of the patients at their home. Usually, they provide periodic services, such as visiting the patients 2-3 times a week. They also instruct and plan the treatment of patients, which range from the ones recovering from accidents, patients who are recuperating from different types of surgeries, and even some cases post-natal care for the mother and the child.