Hospice better than home health?

[Jessann5]

I was a hh nurse for years and I loved and hated it. I loved the hh environment, patients, being outside, and the fredom to make my own schedule. I hated the on-call, wound vacs, unlimited social issues, and paperwork.

I've been back in a non-traditional nursing role for almost 5 years now, but it's boring and I am considering Hospice. Does anyone have any experience with hospice they could share with me? I truly love the terminally ill, and I always felt in place with them in home care.

Thanks!

[nutella, MSN, RN]

I was a hh nurse for years and I loved and hated it. I loved the hh environment, patients, being outside, and the fredom to make my own schedule. I hated the on-call, wound vacs, unlimited social issues, and paperwork.

I've been back in a non-traditional nursing role for almost 5 years now, but it's boring and I am considering Hospice. Does anyone have any experience with hospice they could share with me? I truly love the terminally ill, and I always felt in place with them in home care.

Thanks!

Perhaps review some of the posts that already exist especially about how to choose an agency or what to consider - I have written about that before here in this forum.

Generally speaking, home hospice or in the community (nursing home/assisted living) has it's own challenges and it depends largely on the company if you will feel ok with your job or not. Because healthcare and healthcare decision including staffing and such are mostly financially driven (even for non profit orgs) it can result in you just and your patient are just being "a number". There is a certain de-humanizing aspect of the financially driven healthcare and it can be hard to work in this environment. Frequently, employers who do not really subscribe to the "mission" and have admins (who are not clinicians) make decisions, will not care much about your needs.

I left home palliative / hospice because there was no consideration for the nurses and they were just seen as commodity and pressured into "extra visits" frequent on-call and so on.

If you look into home hospice ask specific questions if you happen to interview. The social problems continue in home hospice and unless you also have a strong social worker will eat up your time as well.

Home hospice nurses are often under appreciated, under paid, under valued and pressured by their employers who count on babyboomers, who will literally "kill themselves" and jump all the time.