Thinking of moving from the hospital to home care

[daisyRN1, BSN, RN]

Hello,

I am a RN with 3 years of acute care experience in med/surg and telemetry. I am really looking to get away from the stress of the hospital setting, and to have some more "normal" hours. I know home care has its own stresses but I am hoping it will be something that I enjoy doing, and that I won't have anxiety about going to work like I do now. For those of you that have made the switch, do you love it?

Thanks for reading,

daisyRN1

[NurseCard, ADN]

There are days when I get SO tired of driving around all over the place. Dealing with smelly nasty houses... having the responsibility of being the only nurse seeing this patient or that patient...

All in all though.. I do believe that it is better and less stressful than the hospital or nursing home, but its not for everyone and many nurses end up high tailing it right back to the nearest free standing medical facility.

Did I mention the never ending paperwork?

[caliotter3]

Suggest you stay on part time at your hospital job just in case the hh decision does not work out. You can decrease stress most by considering extended care home health, where you do a shift, rather than intermittent visits.

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

I was going to suggest Private Duty Nursing (what caliotter3 meant by "extended care home health") over Home Health Visits.

With PDN, you do an entire shift in the patient's home. You provide all necessary care for just one single patient -- no Pyxis machine, no call bells, no doctors/PT/OT/RT messing up your routine, etc., typically narrative charting with pen and paper (although a few agencies have iPad type charting).

Patient acuity can vary.... some just have a G-tube and tube feedings, others have a trach, oxygen, ventilator, etc. You can't actually "take a break" because you have to be available to the patient throughout your assigned shift, but you *do* typically get a lot of down-time, particularly with overnight shifts (unlike in the hospital, our patients generally DO sleep at night!). I spend a lot of time reading or surfing the net.

There's a separate forum for PDN nurses here, if you're interested in learning more: Private Duty Nursing