aspiring HH nurse here..

[cherilee]

Im considering HH care, and wondering:

If you are a full time employee of an agency doing shifts, are you automatically a case manager?

Also, what are the most important things you look for in a HH agency from the nurse's perspective? I know one is a good thorough orientation.

If you are not a "case manager," do you see different people all the time? Or do you still have the same patients week to week?

I have a year of acute care floor nursing, Is that considered sufficient to begin as a hh nurse? I also have six months exp. as an aide in HH.

any responses appreciated! Lisa

[annaedRN, RN]

If you have your assessment and critical thinking skills down, then you are probably ready for HH. I am an RN for VNA -doing visits. We use case management, meaning that once a patient is admitted either by me or assigned to me - I am responsible for making sure that the patient is seen as ordered, keeping all members of the team updated ( RN, LPN, clinical supervisor, doctors, patient/family). If I cannot see the patient I need to find someone else to do the visit. Usually a RN and LPN are on a team which helps to provide some continuity for the patient, but all of us help each other out as needed. So, some patients I only see to admit to services for therapy, some for a few weeks for wound care/IVs/med teaching/etc, some once a month for catheter changes, some daily/weekly for chronic wounds. It really varies with each patient and their needs. Hope I made sense of this:bugeyes:

[caliotter3]

The only thing I wanted to add to what dhyser said is that when you do case work (shift work), you can control the cases (patients) that you see along with your work schedule. You can have it where you are only working with one patient for five or more shifts per week as the sole nurse or the "primary nurse" or you can work different cases on different days for different shifts, or you can even do nothing but fill in work for those who vacation or call in sick. It is difficult, usually, to be able to make your 32 to 40 hours/week doing only fill in unless your agency has a high case load and lots of nurses who take their hh work casually. Most nurses work one or two cases for set shifts during the week to complement their full time jobs out of hh. Those who work hh full time normally will be with two or more agencies to keep employed when their case closes for one reason or another. Good luck.