Home healthcare provides family members with an excellent opportunity to make sure their loved ones receive the appropriate medical treatment and reduce exposure to germs or stressful hospital environments.
Home health care teams usually consist of nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and social workers under the oversight of a physician.
Managing Chronic Diseases
Chronic diseases are long-term medical conditions that can significantly impede quality of life. Medication management and ongoing healthcare services may be required in order to alleviate symptoms.
Home healthcare offers assistance for people living with chronic disease to better manage their healthcare at home and avoid hospital visits – and live longer!
Home healthcare referrals by doctors typically involve creating a care plan with specific goals that is monitored regularly by skilled professionals like nurses or occupational or physical therapists.
Professionals trained to help educate patients and caregivers on managing their conditions at home include diet, exercise and lifestyle modifications that can improve overall health; additionally they’ll monitor any side effects from medications they are prescribed.
Preventing Hospital Visits
Home healthcare offers an effective alternative to hospitalizations, freeing hospitals to focus resources on emergency and critical care needs. Unnecessary hospital stays may result in lost time, increased costs and diminished quality of life for patients.
Home health care teams can play a pivotal role in helping prevent hospital admissions by offering preventive services like wound care, therapy and medication management. Furthermore, their teams may help prevent falls, declining functional ability and nonhealing or persistent pressure ulcers which necessitate hospital admissions.
However, it remains unknown whether those referred for home health care receive it. In this study, researchers investigated the percentage of hospital discharges that experienced their first home health visit within 14 days and explored differences in receipt based on patient, hospital and geographic characteristics such as socioeconomically disadvantaged patients and those dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid being less likely to receive care at home; while hospitals that were vertically integrated with home health agencies had significantly more visits per capita.
Maintaining Independence
Home health care can be an ideal solution for seniors who desire independence but require extra assistance with daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, bathing and grooming. By visiting several times each week with their home healthcare aide to assist with these duties and chores a home healthcare aide provides seniors the chance to stay independent at home while keeping up with daily life and maintaining social interaction.
After hospital stays, many individuals begin receiving home healthcare services as they may not yet feel ready to visit a physician and require help getting better at home. Medicare, private insurance and Medicaid typically cover the costs of home healthcare services.
One-on-one time with a caregiver allows seniors to more effectively express their needs and maintain their sense of independence. Caregivers have been trained to recognize how essential it is that patients maintain their independence while feeling that they remain their own person.
Keeping People Out of the Hospital
Home health care may help reduce hospital readmissions, which are costly and dangerous. According to one study, heart failure patients receiving regular nurse visits had lower hospital readmission rates as well as death rates than those not receiving such visits.
Home healthcare services are generally covered by Medicare or long-term care insurance plans, according to Yount. Reaching out to friends and family can also be helpful when searching for an agency with high-quality nurses, according to him.
Home health care, which allows people to recover in their own homes rather than hospitals, can free up space for sicker patients while improving the flow of and waiting times at hospital emergency departments. A number of initiatives are underway to encourage this home first approach – community response teams and digital tools designed to speed care home placement are two examples – but research into their effects on outcomes for home health care is in its early stages.