Any peds home health nurses out there?

Vocationofalifetime · Apr 18, 2013

Congratulations, Heather!

I have been strictly a peds nurse since 2000 and I love it! I have learned so much along the way and encourage you to challenge yourself, find an in-house mentor that will help you and practice your skills everyday! If you can, work in a variety of cases with different diagnoses, and make use of your clinical manager. Ask questions, and put yourself out there! You will thoroughly enjoy it!

I am currently completing my BSN and I intend on continuing to work with kids and their families in the field after graduating. Home health is a great place to apply all of your skills, and will call upon you to extend great compassion and understanding of a family handling the challenges that come from chronic and serious illness. You are the child's eyes and ears, and most importantly, the advocate for this child and his/her family. Be diligent about keeping your professional boundaries, remain respectful about the family's privacy and confidentiality. Keep your heart open, as a child knows if you are really interested and care for them. Be a support, not only for your client, but to the child's parents and siblings; be kind, nonjudgmental, understanding and listen well.

These are some things that I have learned along the way, and I feel very privileged still in being able to work with children and families in their homes. Enjoy! You are in for a wonderful treat and I assure you that you will learn something new every single day!

Leslie

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Apr 18, 2013

Are you doing shift work with medically complex/fragile children? Check out the private duty nursing forum.

I've worked pediatric home health with complex/fragile children since graduation. Shift work , especially chronic conditions is often considered private duty. I can post some resources later tonight.

notyetnurse · Apr 18, 2013

Leslie, your post made me so happy to read because there is now even another dimension as to why this career is going to be wonderful :) and justbeachy, when you say shift work, i am not 100% certain I understand. My knowledge of the situation is that it's a home health PRN position and that I would be called whenever there are open cases in my area; some cases are a few days while others are longer shifts, and possible more long term. Then again, this whole thing is very new to me and I obviously have a lot to learn!

Xo,

Heather

Madpinknurse · Apr 27, 2013

Hi heather!

I am new to this field also...medically fragile children and private duty nursing! I love the work with the children so far and the families have been wonderful. Good Luck (to us both I guess!)

Denise

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Apr 27, 2013

Leslie, your post made me so happy to read because there is now even another dimension as to why this career is going to be wonderful :) and justbeachy, when you say shift work, i am not 100% certain I understand. My knowledge of the situation is that it's a home health PRN position and that I would be called whenever there are open cases in my area; some cases are a few days while others are longer shifts, and possible more long term. Then again, this whole thing is very new to me and I obviously have a lot to learn!
Xo,
Heather

JustBeachy is referring to private duty nursing vs. VNA type nursing. It sounds like you would be doing more private duty nursing where you go into one home and work a shift with one patient.

I am a pedi home health nurse but I do skilled intermittent visits. My work entails going into homes and providing short nursing visits to multiple children over the course of a day.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Apr 28, 2013

The majority of pediatric home health is private duty with chronic, medically fragile or complex children with no anticipated discharge as they will need long term skilled nursing care. There is also intermittent skilled home health like KelRN215 does but these children have a specific condition whether it be oncology, short term wound care, family education regarding condition/equipment/medication,etc. Since these are short term cases, much care is provided by RN's to open, evaluate and close the case with an occasional LPN in the mix for the intermittent visits (unless infusion, chemotherapy, etc that is limited to an RN scope of practice).

Shift work is working 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 hour shifts with a single patient in the home providing skilled care for an extended period of time...this is private duty nursing. There is a lot of skills, critical thinking, and nursing judgement involved in both types of pediatric nursing in the home.