Aveanna Health

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Nov 14, 2018

Aveanna is the result of the merging of several large pediatric private duty agencies (PSA, Epic, Pediatria). Personally, I do not think these are good positions for new grads. There is minimal training and minimal support in a lot of cases. It's also not a great job for someone who needs a reliable source of income. If your patient ends up hospitalized, you could be without income for weeks.

RobertJo, ADN, RN · Nov 14, 2018

Wow! I didn't even think of that. Thank you for pointing that out. Are you typically only assigned to one patient or might you have a few?

River&MountainRN, ADN, RN · Nov 14, 2018

Wow! I didn't even think of that. Thank you for pointing that out. Are you typically only assigned to one patient or might you have a few?

You only care for one patient at a time for the duration of your shift, but you'd be smart to have at least two patients that you are oriented to and see fairly regularly in case one goes in the hospital. Otherwise, you're out a paycheck if your one-and-only goes into the hospital/dies/etc.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend home care as your first ever job. I was a nurse with three years of LTC/SNF/Sub-acute and Primary Care office nurse experience and three years of LTC/SNF CNA experience when I got involved in home care, and it's been a steep, steep learning curve. There is usually minimal orientation before you're expected, with no other coworkers/ancillary personnel/supervisors around, to troubleshoot some very, very serious and critical situations. It's just you, with a very critical patient, having to possibly make life or death decisions based on your assessment skills. For example, what one of my cases requires in the home for care (continuous ventilation, trach, suctioning, G/J tube management, port, TPN, etc) meant that when he went into the hospital they sent him to the ICU for management because he was too complex for the Med Surg team.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Nov 15, 2018

Wow! I didn't even think of that. Thank you for pointing that out. Are you typically only assigned to one patient or might you have a few?

Really no 2 nurses are the same. I know PDNs who work for 2 agencies and work 60 hours/week with the same patient (but, as I mentioned before, that = no income if the patient is hospitalized) and then there are people who may work 1 shift/week with 3 separate patients. For most people it is a second or just part-time/per diem job. It is very hard for PDN to be your sole source of income, IMO.