Starting in Home Health - Is the Experience Viable?

Nurses General Nursing

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  1. Should I take the home-health position or should I continue applying without taking the position?

    • 9
      Take the home-health position and keep applying for hospital RN positions!
    • 0
      Do not take the home-health position and keep applying for hospital RN positions!

9 members have participated

Hello fellow AllNurses,

I just recently got offered a job as a home-health RN as a new grad. Honestly, my end-game in terms of my career aligns more with working within a hospital-setting, but the job market has seemed particularly rough for a new grad at this time and I'm not really getting any callbacks/interviews for my applications. While my initial plan was to work per-diem as a home-health RN and continue applying for hospital RN jobs as I built up my experience, some of my colleagues have brought to my attention that home-health experience was not seen as "transferrable" or "applicable" experience for hospital RN positions. This was compounded by the fact that my interviewer did later mention that RNs have a tougher time gaining access to hospital RN positions with this experience because they don't believe that the home-health experience encapsulates the work you would be doing within the hospital. Do you think I should take the home-health position and continue applying for hospital RN jobs or do you think I should continue applying for jobs and hope that something comes up? Do you think that the home-health experience will benefit my future applications for hospital RN position or do you think that it may be seen as a not-so-great fit for experience? Any constructive advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

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It's true that this can hamper your ability to get a job in acute care but also have you talked to any of the home health nurses here? Home health is not a great place to start as a new grad in the first place for a whole lot of reasons. Not the least of which is having no experience and no backup. Unless you are an LPN then that changes things.

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  1. Any job is better than no job.
    1. Financial stability
    2. Nursing skill maintenance
    3. Demonstration of employability
    4. Possible networking opportunities
  2. What is the worse thing that could happen?
    1. The experience is not transferable leaving you in the same place as you were before the job
    2. If for some reason you deem the experience to hinder your ability to gain further employment then you just omit it from your resume leaving you in no worse place than you were before

I started in a non-hospital position against everyone's recommendations. It allowed me to develop skills and even specialize. Once I moved into the hospital I was actually considered a specialty leader and a practice leader within the system. This has gone on to me to influencing healthcare literally on a global scale within my specialty. All because I took opportunities when they arose.

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Specializes in Mental Health.

Is moving an option? I feel really bad for some of you in crummy markets. There really are tons of good jobs out there in the right area.

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56 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

It's true that this can hamper your ability to get a job in acute care but also have you talked to any of the home health nurses here? Home health is not a great place to start as a new grad in the first place for a whole lot of reasons. Not the least of which is having no experience and no backup. Unless you are an LPN then that changes things.

Thank you for your post! When you say "acute care", are you referring to acute care units (ICU, CCU, etc.) or did you mean it more as an acute care setting (like any hospital)? I would prefer to work in Med-Surg, so I wouldn't be super down if it hampered opportunities in ICUs/CCUs.

24 minutes ago, Asystole RN said:
  1. Any job is better than no job.
    1. Financial stability
    2. Nursing skill maintenance
    3. Demonstration of employability
    4. Possible networking opportunities
  2. What is the worse thing that could happen?
    1. The experience is not transferable leaving you in the same place as you were before the job
    2. If for some reason you deem the experience to hinder your ability to gain further employment then you just omit it from your resume leaving you in no worse place than you were before

I started in a non-hospital position against everyone's recommendations. It allowed me to develop skills and even specialize. Once I moved into the hospital I was actually considered a specialty leader and a practice leader within the system. This has gone on to me to influencing healthcare literally on a global scale within my specialty. All because I took opportunities when they arose.

Thank you for your in-depth response! In my head, I was really thinking that a foot in the door anywhere would eventually serve me, and that goes alongside what you wrote about in your post. Do you mind me asking when you decided to transition from home health to the hospital setting? Did you have a tough time getting a job in the hospital setting?

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14 minutes ago, Rionoir said:

Is moving an option? I feel really bad for some of you in crummy markets. There really are tons of good jobs out there in the right area.

Unfortunately, moving is not so much of an option for me. I'm trying my hardest to be flexible in terms of commute and facility, but it's still a tad rough out here. ?

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30 minutes ago, HappierTimesAreComing said:

Thank you for your post! When you say "acute care", are you referring to acute care units (ICU, CCU, etc.) or did you mean it more as an acute care setting (like any hospital)? I would prefer to work in Med-Surg, so I wouldn't be super down if it hampered opportunities in ICUs/CCUs.

Thank you for your in-depth response! In my head, I was really thinking that a foot in the door anywhere would eventually serve me, and that goes alongside what you wrote about in your post. Do you mind me asking when you decided to transition from home health to the hospital setting? Did you have a tough time getting a job in the hospital setting?

The hospital chose me in a sense. Areas like home health and even LTC allow for a degree of specialization that is unobtainable in a hospital within the same time for an ambitious individual.

I will give you an example. In the hospital it is relatively difficult to get enough experience dealing with wounds to become a recognized wound care specialist but not so in home health and LTC, if you like wounds you will swim in all kinds of wounds. Work hard at it, specialize in it, study it, become certified in it and the hospital will recruit you.

There are other things you can specialize in such as infusion therapy, case management, rheumatology, oncology, etc but wound care is a common example. I personally specialized in infusion therapy and vascular access well before entering a hospital. By the time I even desired to work for a hospital I was being recruited because I was one of a few with the specialization and training they needed.

Home health is the wild west of healthcare which is why a lot of nurses shy away from it. Most people have a hard time with the lack of structure and well-defined boundaries. I used that wildness to pursue a specialization that would otherwise be unavailable to me in something like Med Surg. Like many things, it is what you make of it.

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Specializes in school nurse.

I see the question here as being a bit backwards. Instead of an initial home health job jeopardizing your acute care chances, I think your lack of acute care experience should be jeopardizing your home health care chances. Home health is not a field for new grads, especially if you start for a company that would put a new grad in that situation. They are likely looking for warm bodies with licenses...

Re: earlier posted lists of what could go wrong. Well, you could make a serious mistake due to inexperience and you and your patient could both suffer the consequences.

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On 11/26/2019 at 2:01 PM, Wuzzie said:

It's true that this can hamper your ability to get a job in acute care but also have you talked to any of the home health nurses here? Home health is not a great place to start as a new grad in the first place for a whole lot of reasons. Not the least of which is having no experience and no backup. Unless you are an LPN then that changes things.

Genuinely curious, why would being an LPN change things in this situation?

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1 hour ago, shiftingtides said:

Genuinely curious, why would being an LPN change things in this situation?

At least in my state, LPNs in home care must be supervised by an RN, so that offers a bit more in the way of support.

I totally agree that Home Health Care is not the place to start as a new nurse and would be very leery of any company that hires new nurses. Those that think Home Health Care is easy or doesn't need experience probably haven't done the job.

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On 12/1/2019 at 3:24 AM, shiftingtides said:

Genuinely curious, why would being an LPN change things in this situation?

Because if someone has LPN experience then they are already a nurse and don't need to learn how to be one like a new grad does. Hopefully an experienced LPN already has the time management and critical thinking skills necessary to provide good care in the home health setting. A new grad would be lost at sea when the first issue came up. Not a position I would want to be in and certainly not one a HHC company should PUT a new grad in.

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On 12/2/2019 at 4:28 AM, Wuzzie said:

Because if someone has LPN experience then they are already a nurse and don't need to learn how to be one like a new grad does. Hopefully an experienced LPN already has the time management and critical thinking skills necessary to provide good care in the home health setting. A new grad would be lost at sea when the first issue came up. Not a position I would want to be in and certainly not one a HHC company should PUT a new grad in.

Ok that totally makes sense. For some reason I was reading that as a new LPN grad would be okay going right into home health, and as a new grad LPN I was wracking my brain for why that might be. Thanks for clarifying! ?

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