Patchouli

It’s hard enough to keep up with the documentation in home health admissions, along with phone calls, communication, etc. The patients these ALFs are taking are absolutely not appropriate for their facilities, but all their administrators see is dollar bills. They throw home health in to manage wounds, foleys, chest tubes, etc, and they don’t even bother giving the home health agencies proper background, or useful information such as date of Foley placement, urologist name, or even telling us they have a Foley if we are ordered for wound care or physical therapy… They have minimal staff, and we can’t even get assistance with checking bottoms on hoyer patients, and when we come in to do wound care, we’re stuck doing full care because they haven’t taken care of their residents basic toileting, or peri cleanup, even though we don’t work there, and have 6-8 other people to see who could be 20-30-50 minutes apart. Report, communication, background, information all basic nursing stuff. Whoever does intake at these ALFs needs some serious education. It’s getting old, and I for one am tired of going above and beyond, only to have it happen over and over. Tired of having people thrown to us to figure out when we didn’t get the information they did. I was at a home health opening for three hours because I wasn’t informed of amount and severity of wounds, even though I called the night before with questions, and was given false/inadequate information, and wasn’t informed wound care would be daily, wasn’t informed they had a catheter, wasn’t given surgeons name, wound care orders, or date of f/u appts. We are all tired but this is ridiculous. Do better or get out before you take others down with you. Your coworkers, residents/patients, and outside assistance such as home healthcare nurses, and physical therapists deserve more.

Time to leave. Home health is challenging enough with the paperwork/computer work, without adding more personal time into it. With what you’re describing, you’ll have zero personal life.