HH Nursing vs. LTC nursing pros/cons as a LPN

Mr.Lollercoastr, CNA, LPN · Jan 30, 2020

Home health.

Pros:

Flexibility: If you like to work flexible hours, home health is for you. Forget 3-11 or 7a-7p. You can work from 8a-4p, 9a-2p, or whatever combination of 8 or 12's the company offers.

1:1 care for your patient: Forget running around like a chicken with its head cutoff, forget trying to pass medications to 40+ people, forget trying to pass 12 medications to one patient( some home health patients only have 5 meds during the day, and you don't have to give them at specific times e.g. 9:00 a.m. 10p, but instead, it's more like give day, noon, evening meds.

Laid back environment: A laid-back environment allows you to hone your assessment skills to the T, and respond quickly to any emergencies that may occur.

Charting: This depends on the company you'll work for, but some have electronic charting at the patient's homes, which make it easy.

Supplies: Supplies can be scarce or adequate depending on the client's home and their family, usually though, they are adequate. No more running to another floor to get supplies, less wasting time.

Cons:

Lack of auxiliary staff: This is no big deal to me, but you don't have aides to help you at the home, and you do everything for your patient(e.g. total care, giving baths, changing catheters, shaving, brushing their teeth)

Clients: You may have to work multiple cases instead of just one, may home health companies don't have that many patients and the schedules tend to fill very quickly, so I will talk with your supervisor about when and what times are you available to work. Sometimes, they won't have any work because all spots have been filled.

Client's homes: Some client homes may not be clean, there might be cockroaches, family members doing drugs. Some family members may have specific preferences about who they want taking care of their families(male nurse, female nurse).

Acute patients: If you work with pediatric patients, the higher level cases are on ventilators, tracheostomies, and BiPAP/CPAP. This is NICU/ICU level stuff. LPNs are usually not trained on taking care of unstable clients. When I went for my interview, the supervisor warned me that I will be taking care of very sick babies, and wanted to make sure that in case of an emergency and the baby started desatting, I knew what I was supposed to do.

That's all. Anybody feel free to add anything.

caliotter3 · Mar 9, 2020

In extended care home health you have the possibility of getting a great case with a great family and you may be the only nurse on the case, so you don't have to deal with toxic coworkers. Need not reiterate the benefits of getting comparable pay to only be responsible for one patient instead of whatever "too many" consists of in a facility.

LatebloomerLVN · Apr 14, 2020

The only Pro in nusing home you learn a lot of skills. In home health you have an option to choose a case if is right for you. If not your agency can give you another case. There's a lot of pro's in home health: No toxic coworkers or families, no stress & finish your job on time, you dont have to deal with difficult pt/family like in nursing home. You can choose your hrs in home health & no weekend unlike nursing homes & last your license are more safe in home health unlike nursing home you have a 30-60's pt depends on what shift.They pay more in nursing home but I'm burned out, high stress & not happy. Also, they dont pay OT after your shift a lot of nurses clock out & went back to finish their work. From my experience before just 1 job nursing home, I'm burned out. Now, I work OT on my home heath every other week & hospice per diem & I'm not tired physically & emotionally.