Good move to HH?

[ladybop]

First post, woo!! Longtime fan, though.

I've been on an GI/Renal overflow MedSurg floor for about a year (May '10 grad). The big news is that I just interviewed with SC DHEC for a HH job. I'm really excited about the possible move (it is abundantly clear inpatient is not for me, even outside of the "you really shouldn't make a decision before you've given it a year" and "new-grad-blues").

I'm going to schedule a day or two to ride-along with one of their HH nurses and I will have plenty of questions, but a little extra credit never hurts.

So, what do you love about HH and just what makes for a bad day in HH? Before I interviewed, I had been looking at going back to school to get off the floor. Just wanted to know if HH might be a good move.

( If you're wondering, I had a limited community health clinical rotation in school, maybe 4 home visits, but I thought it was good. And although I work with a great team, the job I'm in isn't conducive to a happy life for me, lol.)

[caliotter3]

You will find lots of threads and posts in the home health forum that will make for good reading. Hope you find that you like home health. And welcome to the site. :)

[paddler]

Good day:

My schedule is set first thing and doesn't change. Patients are home when they said they will be. I am able to chart as I go and assessments move smoothly. Doctor's offices call me back so I can finish my stuff that day and not have an ever-growing list of tiny things to follow up on all week long. Traffic is fine. I have enough supplies. I don't get a single call from the office. I am able to resolve problems, educate patients and help them make progress.

Bad day:

The office calls to add on a few or remove a patient from my schedule today. A co-worker calls in sick and I have to manufacture time in an already full day for patients I am unfamiliar with (which means more time in the home for the same pay). The patient is super sick and should have called 911 two days ago. The doctor's office is closed for lunch for 2 hours, and/or doesn't return my call. The doctor's office requests me to fax something to them (kinda hard to do from the road). Patient's have 10 zillion questions and an admission visit takes 2 hours, plus the charting. Patient is not home even though I confirmed the visit that morning. Patients or family members think I am there to boss them around and for some reason decide I am their enemy and take an adversarial stance (I am usually pretty good at deflecting this and am able smooth things over but some people are just CRAZY). I run late because of unforeseen circumstances and have to call all my patients and rearrange my schedule... again. I waste time sitting in traffic. Gas prices go up. My car breaks down. I have to pee or poop but there is nowhere or no time to stop. I get call after annoying call from the office wanting me to fix/do something I have already done or worse, fix something someone else did wrong. The previous nurse's charting sucks and I don't know about this or that new order and look like an idiot because she didn't follow through.

Today was a good day! :)