Does home health care put your license in jeopardy if you are a new nurse?

[Roland]

My wife works on the trauma unit/ MedSurge at a busy hospital and has for the last six months. She has been considering picking up extra hours doing home care (she only gets 24hours per week at the hospital and we need the money) at a company where she worked as a CNA for two years while in school. However, she fears being in situations involving trach care, CPAP, and vents et.(they do offer a vent class which she will have to take before doing those cases) where she feels she has minimal experience/competency. She feels that at least in the hospital that there is "back up" available (although she also says that most of the other nurses are often to busy to assist when she has questions due to short staff and heavy patient loads).

Does home health care put a newer nurses license in jeopardy? Is there a large "track history" of nurses losing their licenses in this setting due to lacking certain key skills at crucial times? I think that her biggest concern is that an acute situation may develop and that she won't have the skills to properly deal with it. She had this same sort of "self doubt" when she first came off orientation at the hospital four months ago.

[suzanne4, RN]

I do not recommend it if she does not have any experience working with this equipment. She will not have immediate back-up available if there is a progblem with a piece of equipment.