Home Health Certifications

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I am a new graduate and I am taking my NCLEX in June. I have been offered a job in Home Health Care when I pass the NCLEX. I am curious as to what/if any additional certifications you can get or that are required to see certain patients. Children, mental health, etc. I plan on getting more information from my future employer but I would like to have an idea on the topic.

Thanks in advance for any information you can offer me!

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I've been a home care admin for about 17 years now, and I can tell you that my BEST nurses are usually ones who have had either good, fast paced gen med-surg experience or a great telemetry experience. The biggest thing is that you need to be very capable and confident in your assessment skills and communication with MD's. You are their eyes and ears and they have to trust you, so you have to trust yourself. I've seen so many new nurses want to start out in homecare and get so overwhelmed and burned out. There is a lot of paperwork, even computerized. And you HAVE to make them give you a great orientation. Don't let them "turn you loose" too soon, no matter how aggravating it may seem at the time. As I've said, I've been doing this a long time, and we still run across new things every day that we have to talk through. The nurses I have the most respect for are the ones who know that they aren't sure and will ask. Simple as that....if you are not sure, pick up the phone and ask. Don't let anyone tell you that homecare isn't "really" nursing. We do everything except surgery, pretty much, in the home nowadays, and we are truly one on one with the patient and their loved ones. To me, this is nursing at it's finest and I've left it a couple of times, but always find my way back for that very reason. Best of luck to you!

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I've been a home care admin for about 17 years now, and I can tell you that my BEST nurses are usually ones who have had either good, fast paced gen med-surg experience or a great telemetry experience. The biggest thing is that you need to be very capable and confident in your assessment skills and communication with MD's. You are their eyes and ears and they have to trust you, so you have to trust yourself. I've seen so many new nurses want to start out in homecare and get so overwhelmed and burned out. There is a lot of paperwork, even computerized. And you HAVE to make them give you a great orientation. Don't let them "turn you loose" too soon, no matter how aggravating it may seem at the time. As I've said, I've been doing this a long time, and we still run across new things every day that we have to talk through. The nurses I have the most respect for are the ones who know that they aren't sure and will ask. Simple as that....if you are not sure, pick up the phone and ask. Don't let anyone tell you that homecare isn't "really" nursing. We do everything except surgery, pretty much, in the home nowadays, and we are truly one on one with the patient and their loved ones. To me, this is nursing at it's finest and I've left it a couple of times, but always find my way back for that very reason. Best of luck to you!

hi, pblottRN,

so what specific certifications can you recommend for a newbie home health nurse to have ?

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

ANA dropped Home health certifications few years ago due to lack of interest. Take CEU courses in area that interests you to include in your porfolio.

Wound Certification Course (WCC®) would open doors.

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ANA dropped Home health certifications few years ago due to lack of interest. Take CEU courses in area that interests you to include in your porfolio.

Wound Certification Course (WCC®) would open doors.

You need 2 years of full time experience to test for this.

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There are lots of great CE programs out there that would be amazing for newbie HH nurses to have, including advanced physical assessment, all types of pumps and interal/parenteral therapies, any type of specialty you'd see yourself doing (can go for certs in psych, onco, peds, etc and one HUGE area for HH now and forthgoing will be coding in the homecare arena. Ever changing and different from any other setting.) The one certification I like to see is a certified OASIS nurse, but you will HAVE to have experience with the OASIS assessment to get this. Coding and OASIS are both bears, because there's so much room for interpretation. But the above would be my advice for a newbie. Get some CE's under your belt that will make YOU most confident in the field, then work toward one of those two, if not both. WOC is also a great certification and will allow you to specialize/garner more money, but again, it's very indepth certification and requires a good bit of experience.

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Specializes in Home Health.

Not sure about other states, but Louisiana requires that a home health nurse have pediatric hospital experience (not sure of the amount) in order to see peds patients in home health.

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