Home Health Aide Services

Home health is a physician-ordered service designed to establish a safe environment and maximize the ability of a patient to heal at home from various medical conditions that require ongoing treatment. It often involves both management of the disease along with its symptoms, mobility help, medication management, and addressing home safety issues. It also involves educating both the patients and the caregivers to know how to provide effective and appropriate care.

There are many members who make up a complete home health care team, including a doctor who oversees the patient’s progress as well as nurses, therapist, social workers, and home health aides. Each person uses a coordinated approach to deliver specialized care in the comfort of home. However, home health aides are vital members of the home health care team. The following will explore what exactly this service provides and what to look for when choosing one for your loved one’s care:

• Showering or bathing patients: This helps patients get cleaned safely. A bath can be a sponge bath or involve physically helping the patient get in the shower and clean themselves.
• Educating the family and patient: Home health aides also teach the patients themselves— along with their family members or other caregivers who might be present in the home— how to properly care for a wound, what to look for in case of an infection, and generally get them on the way to recovery.
• Grooming: Another aspect of a home health aide’s duties includes helping patients groom themselves. This can involve helping them brush their teeth, providing ear or foot care, skin care, nail care, brushing their hair and even shaving them.
• Using the restroom: Due to mobility issues, many home health patients need the help of an aide to get to and from the bathroom. If they have a portable toilet set up, then the aide might even empty and clean the portable toilet when treating the patient.
• Monitoring the patient: As a part of the home health care team, home health aides are often the first to notice problematic changes. This is usually because they see the patients more frequently than the other members of the home health care team. Therefore, they are often the first to notice changes that need to be addressed in patients. They also frequently report back to a doctor or nurse how the patient is doing and if symptoms are being properly addressed.
• Positioning or moving: In some cases, home health patients might not be able to move themselves from one location to another due to their injury. Therefore, another important aspect of a home health aide’s job is to help a patient in and out of chairs, in and out of bed or help them position themselves correctly wherever they are situated.

Thankfully, at Doctor’s Choice, we are picky about our home health care team. We only choose the best professionals in the field to provide services through our company. So, you can be sure that all our home health aides have the following qualifications and characteristics, making them a good home health aide:

• Compassionate: There is no room in this industry for impatience. Being compassionate is a must-have trait when working with patients who are not feeling well. In addition, patients who have chronic conditions like Alzheimer's can become easily irritated and even fight against their caregivers. So, it takes a special person to patiently work with them, making compassion and patience necessary qualities of a good home health aide.
• Good Communicator: Because home health aide involves teaching the patient and other caregivers how to perform certain tasks, it is immensely important that home health aides be good communicators.
• Experienced: Yet another important characteristic of a good home health aide is a professional who has a great deal of experience working with patients and providing this type of specialized nursing care. Of course, every professional has to start somewhere, so if they haven’t had a great deal of experience, it’s good to at least ensure they are educated in proper patient care and possess the other characteristics mentioned.
• Ensure Patient Safety: When patients are recovering from an illness or surgery, they are at greater risk for reinjury or complications, such as infections. Therefore, a good home health aide will be aware of all the safety measures that should be in place and follow them rigidly to provide the best level of care and reduce this risk.
• Physically Able to Perform the Tasks: Even if a nurse's aide has the qualifications or knowledge of the industry or patient care overall, if they can’t physically perform the tasks for whatever reason, they can endanger the patient more. Therefore, a home health aide should always meet the physical requirements to provide the correct level of service to patients to keep them safe.