LPN's doing HHC

Archerlpvn, LPN, LVN · Jan 21, 2017

So much will depend on the state. When I did home health in Colorado, there was a huge emphasis on "visits" r/t chronic disease management and utilizing LPNs where we would do visits on patients who needed diabetic management with insulin injection, QD and up to TID. Of course we would address other diseases and issues as well and treat, assess accordingly. I had a patient in Colorado where I would see her TID for nebulizer Txs for her COPD as well. NOW here in Oregon, when a patient needs those types of services I mentioned earlier that I provided in Colorado, they are seemingly sent to nursing homes. Here in Oregon I swear LPNs do mostly wound care... in both we did teaching of course. In Colorado nurses did visits throughout the day depending on the needs of the patient including evenings and weekends. Here in Oregon there's a push by literally every HH agency I've encountered to work mon-fri, 8a-5p and agencies in Oregon don't like for visits to be held on weekends.

In general get ready to assess or "collect data" on your patients daily. Reporting and intervening as appropriate. You'll do things like cathertorizarions/care, wound care, chronic disease care and management, a lot of teaching, medication related procedures like possibly filling a medi set if allowed in your state. Blood draws, IV infusions, and you may see 4-7 patients a day.

caliotter3 · Jan 21, 2017

There is an entire forum dedicated to home health with lots of threads and posts that cover this.

TracyMarie76 · Jan 22, 2017

Thank you for replying, very helpful! Do you know anything about oasis? This particular company I interviewed with said they are going to train me on it. But, I have been told by a friend (RN who does HH) that only RN's can do oasis. So idk!

Archerlpvn, LPN, LVN · Jan 22, 2017

Yes, only an RN performs and completes the OASIS in my experience as it requires RN level comprehensive assessment. If an LPN happens to be a QA/QI nurse, then he or she should become very familiar with how it's supposed to be completed correctly. Other than that, it's just good for the LPN to become familiar with it and how to read/disseminate the information in it.

1sweetday · Feb 15, 2017

I work in FL as a home health LPN. As pp said, it's a lot of education, wound care etc. I see anywhere from 4-8 patients per day. Most visits are "easy" disease management visits with diabetic or cardiac patients. We do have a fair amount of post-op patients as well. We do occasional lab draws, fill med sets and sometimes give injections. We always provide education during each visit. LPNs don't do OASIS at my agency.