Case Management the best answer for older nurses??

kristiandkaylin · Feb 1, 2009

This is my first posting as well. It seems I have been a member since 2006 but I find it difficult to spend the time needed to figure out how to navigate and become familiar with sites and loose track of them over time. Until today, a day off with nothing to do, so rare. Anyway to answer on your question, I work for a home health agency and after much conflict within myself have finally come to enjoy working here. I am the youngest nurse at this agency. Most of the nurses are older, with several ready to retire. I think this is unusual being that I have been a nurse for only 2.5 years and I came over to home health after only 1 year experience on the floor. It was difficult to learn what was needed to be competent in this job. It was very different coming from the hospital to home health. Nurses I work with would tell me at least give it a year and they were right. The amount of paper work and detail involved each day can be overwhelming at first. The patient care is easy. The difficult part is learning the charting system, the insurance portion, with whom and when to set up patients with outside services, juggling your patient case load, and just finding the right rhythm and routine to it all. It was very difficult to adjust to working 5 days week. As with any job you have your ups and downs, but with home health your worst day will never reach a bad day in the hopital. Once you learn what you need to know, the job is easy. Little stress, rarely talk to MDs, most of the job is patient education, most home visits are under 30 minutes, your time with the patient is 1on1, you spend most your day outside, you schedule your patients, its flexible enough to fit in your own appointments and life in to your day, you can chart at home (my favorite), you still use skills like IV, central lines, wd vacs, foleys, g-tubes, wounds, and trachs, and the patients are not critical. For example we teach the patients or caregivers to care for their own IV or wound and we monitor once or twice a week. Overall, I would say this job offers enjoyment and fulfillment of the reasons you became a nurse in the first place without driving you mad. I hope I didnt go overboard answering your question. I have had too much coffee this am. :)

nwanne7 · Feb 1, 2009

Thanks for the input on home health. I have been looking into doing geriatric care management becaae I think that is the future. I hope to find a course on line that I can afford. I have been worried about the clinical area of home health since I have been out of hospital a long time.

Take care;)

gypsyatheart · Feb 2, 2009

Kristiandkaylin, that was a very detailed response, thank you...very informative. I have been wondering about HH Case Mgmt myself.

workingmomRN · Feb 8, 2009

I enjoyed reading your input. It helps to answer some of my own questions as well. I have been working in dialysis for almost 9 years now, and do not want to still be working the floor when I am in my 50's or even 60's. I was afraid that I did not have the skills any more to even think about home health, but I certainly will give it some more consideration.