hospital to home health transition

anh06005, MSN, APRN, NP · Sep 15, 2013

I did almost the exact same transition and there really isn't much to "brush up on!" They are two different worlds as far as set-up and documentation. You will focus more on patient education in home health which I enjoy. I love seeing the light bulb come on when a patient finally understands why he needs to weigh every morning (and has CHF) or when a COPD patient calls the doctor's office to report yellow sputum and gets antibiotics right away.

I think you just have to jump in and go from there to be honest. There is a lot of lingo I got lost in in the beginning including:

OASIS -- Medicare paperwork that helps to define a patient's status. Done at SOC (start of care), recertification (at the end of the 60-day certification period--this indicates that the patient still needs home health for at least another 60 day certification period), post hospital (when a patient comes home from inpatient status), and discharge (this OASIS should be improved from the previous....that's the goal anyway though it doesn't always happen).

485 -- these are your doctor's orders. They include some pretty generic stuff including VS parameters and when you are obligated to notify MD, use walker to ambulate, weight patient q visit, SpO2 q visit, etc.

Those are the two main ones I can think of off the top of my head. Just go with the flow and in a few weeks or months it will become second nature.