Feeling safe

Floor_Nurse · Apr 21, 2020

Yes. I have worked both and there are pro's & con's. In home health, if my patient suddenly gets admitted to the hospital then I may not have a shift for the day. Often, mom will think that it's OK to give meds that are not on the MAR's. Sometimes the mommy will do crazy things after I've gone home (med errors, unsanitary handling of food etc). One particular mommy found her child on the floor (fell out of bed) in the middle of the night and did nothing about it for hours. On the good side: I've gotten free meals in restaurants, plenty of free time to do lengthy, detailed documentation, and sometimes very, very easy days. The health insurance benefits are lousy.

Archerlpvn, LPN, LVN · Apr 22, 2020

Are you referring to home health visits or private duty home care? They’re very different... skilled home health visits are generally more “acute”. And you do a variety of skills, teaching, assessments and education. Typically a full time home health LPN will see between 5-7 patients a day. I love home health ? you learn to sharpen your assessment skills so much, and learn to trust your instincts. Lots of wound care, chronic disease management, blood draws, some IVs depending on your state and company and more like using pleurixs etc. In Some states like Colorado and California, they even have easy visits like insulin visits, medication administration visits for psych patients, and medbox fills. So much of what you’ll do depends on your state and what consider a “skilled” service. Hope this helps ?

Mintezia · May 15, 2020

For the most part I do. I think the nurse to patient ratios in facilities are too high. Also it's hard seeing residents neglected. For me it was just too much of a risk to my license especially as a newer nurse. Heck I've even met CNAs who prefer home health.

I do the best that I can but I dislike being taken advantage of. I know if something happens to my license I would have no backup plan. Even when I work as diligently I still really worry about something bad happening.

Home health isn't perfect either. I've filled in on 3 nightmarish cases. Some clients have truly unreasonable expectations of their nurses. The dementia cases are harder to do alone if you are inexperienced and/or not strong enough. All the aides I've personally seen succeed in that area of home health look very strong, and I envy people that can handle those cases.

But home health has been low stress, I've gotten good training, no mandated overtime and I am not stuck to a case. The pay is good enough for me. Depending on where you are, home health pay is more than the facility for far less work. The biggest drawbacks are that you have to be autonomous and you don't use as many skills.