Home Health Nurse want to be... need advice

[makua girl]

Hi Home health nurses,

I am a nurse with 4 years experience in telemetry.. and after 4 years I decided to raise my family. Now that I am back, I am exploring options. I am more comfortable and familiar with hospital nursing and thinking about going back to it, but I have always wanted to do home health nursing... I am thinking about applying to do per diem positions in HH... do you have any advice? What is the first year HH nurse need to know? Any good books/training/certifications that I should have? what company that you know that give some kind of training/good guidence for the first year home health nurse? Let me know. Thanks.

[caliotter3]

If you go through the home health forum and read several of the threads you can get a lot of advice and get a feel of what others have said about which employers to seek out and which should be avoided. Your best source of info about local employers would be nurses in your area that have worked locally. I've met hh nurses with their patients in the mall and we've had short chats and passed info back and forth. Hope you find hh to be a good situation for you.

[KateRN1]

First thing is to differentiate between home health and private duty. With home health, you are generally traveling between several patients in one day, doing short visits up to about an hour, give or take. You write a note for each patient, track your mileage, and generally need to be able to adjust your schedule at a moment's notice. With private duty, you do shifts with one patient, 8, 10, 12 hours, whatever the contract is for. You write one note at the end of the shift (usually) and go home. No mileage, no traveling.

Each has its benefits and drawbacks, you have to decide what fits your personality. If you are just getting back into nursing after a break, private duty might suit you to allow you to get your feet wet in an environment where the family (usually) can help you learn the ropes in caring for the patient. On the other hand, if you're comfortable with your skills and don't want to stay in one place all day, home health might suit you better. Only you can decide. Either way, it's a good way to get back into nursing.