Can a home health nurse specialize in neurology?

[satyadhi]

Can a home health nurse specialize in neurology? Assuming I have at least 2 years experience working on a neuro unit could I go to a home health agency asking for mostly neuro patients?

I have heard that some home health nurses specialize in certain areas, but is neuro a possible specialization?

In addition I was wondering if a home health nurse could have two specializations. What I think I would really love would be both neuro and psych in a home health setting.

Is it realistic to hope for a home health job where maybe roughly about 37-38% of my patients are neuro, and another roughly 37-38% were psych, and about the last 25% were a combination of neuro and psych?

[caliotter3]

If by neuro, you mean long term care patients who have suffered from strokes, yes. But home care mainly yields cases with various diagnoses that keeps a person homebound. There may be a preponderance of one type or another, but you should not expect to be able to only work with one type of patient in home care. There just aren't enough cases of one type to go around. Some people prefer to work peds while others prefer to work with adults. That is about the extent of specialization in home health, and even then, the person may be required to be flexible if they want to continue working.

[satyadhi]

Ok, thanks.

Would it be possible to work with both psych and non-psych home health patients at least?

What about if someone was interested in family health, could they deal with both peds and adults?

[twinpumpkin]

Some home health agencies have psych nurses and some don't. It just depends on the agency whether or not you'd get to see psych pts. Also, in my experience, home health agencies specialize in either adults or peds, but not both.