Home Health Nursing Jobs
There has been a great increase in home health nursing jobs for last few years. Home health aides or nurses are people who provide basic personal and medical care. They are employed by the home health aide employer agencies, family of the patient or by the patient himself. They provide assistance to the patients at their homes or residential centers instead of in some hospital or medical care center.
The job of a home health nurse or aide includes the basic medication and household work. The home heath nurses or aides help the invalids and disabled and people who are terminally ill. They also help kids and elderly people who need assistance in their daily routine work. They help the injured and the ill to recover their illnesses and injuries. The duties they usually perform are:
- To assist the patient in recovering by giving medications and helping in other exercises
- To change the bandages of injured people when required
- To perform some household work like cleaning, laundry and cooking the nutritious and healthy diet for the patient,
- To take the patient to the doctor whenever necessary
- Checking the pulse of the patient
- Regularly checking the respiratory system and temperature
- To use the medical equipment used for check up of a particular disease
In addition to the above mentioned duties and skills the home health nurses or aides have to do some other tasks which their employer wants them to do. These additional skills include having a driving license, CPR training or a certified nursing diploma.
There are various schools and colleges that provide training and classes for home health aides and nurses. The training hours besides theoretical learning, required for certification in home health aide or nursing is seventy five hours practical training. The requirement for admission and certification in home health aide and nursing differ from state to state. Some states do not require any certification for home health aides. They are only required to have training in their field. Though the certification is not necessary, some agencies and personal employers prefer to have certified home health aides. Thus the trend of getting certification in home health aide is increasing. The certification proves their competence in their profession and increases their chances of getting valuable jobs.
The job of home health aides or nurses requires certain physical and mental capacities. Their work involves risks as well. They have to work with infectious patients. If they are not very careful the may get the infection. So they need to be very careful. They must know the precautions for infection control. They may encounter emergency situations during their work, so they have to be physically fit and strong. The emergency situations may involve stress, so deal with such situations they must have a calm aptitude.
There are not many chances of advancement in this field. But there are certain other courses available for home health nurses or aides to advance in medical field. The hourly salary of the HHAs is generally $8 to $12. The employment scale of this profession is expected to increase in coming years.