I want to become a home health nurse. Please give me some advice on how to begin.

caliotter3 · Feb 23, 2009

You can get a better idea of what is going on in the hh field by reading many of the threads in the hh forum. First you should decide in your mind whether you want to do intermittent visits or continuous care (shift) work. Basically, shift work is just that, providing basic nursing care for a shift for one client. Home care clients are usually stable, routine care. Intermittent visits means that you will be making several visits each day doing various duties, maybe a wound dressing change for one client, teaching visit and diabetes mgmt for a newly diagnosed diabetic, etc. You can arrange your own visits or your manager will provide your schedule to you. You are paid either per visit or an hourly rate. Read up in the hh forum, get an idea of what you want to do, then investigate the local agencies to see which agency or agencies you want to go with. You can always come back with any other questions and will find most of them answered if you do a search in the hh forum. HTH

roro13us · Feb 23, 2009

Thank you so very much. But will it be hard for me to get into HH since I have no eperience? I only have nursing home experience. But I am a very fast learner. roro13us

BuddahNature · Feb 24, 2009

I would suggest you go apply. Many of those you have taken care of in nursingST homes were once consumers of home health. Can you work independently,have good assessment skills,and nursing skills are some of the qualities you need. Keep in mind in homecare you pick and choose your clients,also some clients will not be offered to you unless you have passed the home health agency course in that area,and then you will initially be field supervised. You also get oriented by one of the nurses,on the case already,before being left on your own.

To find out if homecare is for you,keep your regular job,and work homecare also.Since you choose your own hours,you can work homecare easily around your current job.