In 2007, almost 3.4 million people received more than 110 million home-care visits from Medicare-certified home-care agencies (Lange, 2012). The home-care field is continuously growing in order to meet the needs of patients who wish to receive care in the comfort of their home. Patients who are critically ill and need continuous monitoring may not be advised to obtain home health care but rather stay in the hospital for care. The major difference between working as a hospital nurse and being a home-care nurse is the setting. By working in a hospital, the nurse sees many different patients, but only sees them as a patient in their hospital room. A home care nurse enters the patient’s home and is surrounded by their everyday life which can then lead the nurse to understand more of the patient’s needs, likes/dislikes, and their overall well being. A home-care nurse is required to travel to the patient’s home to provide them with medical care. As defined by medicare.gov, home health care is a wide range of health care services that can be given in the patient’s home and is usually less expensive, more convenient, and just as effective as care in a hospital or skilled nursing facility. What happens during the home visit strongly depends on the reason the patient is receiving medical care. The majority of patients, who receive home health care visits, are being treated for a certain illness or injury. During the home-care visit, the nurse performs an assessment on
As a graduate of the Doctor of Nursing Practice in a Family Nurse Practitioner specialty, I aim to challenge myself further in the field of nursing by providing efficient and effective care to individuals of all ages. In the role of Family Nurse Practitioner, I will be able to care for infants, adults, and elderly patients, and help them to manage acute and chronic illnesses. I will also focus on improving quality of life by offering preventative care options to patients. Furthermore, I would be able to provide more in depth care and establish rapport with patients and families to help them care for their own personal health through assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Currently, as a Registered Nurse on a Cardiology Intermediate Care Unit,
Although the largest profession in the health care industry is nursing, a larger number of people are getting older and living longer. This means that more people will need nursing care, whether it’s in a hospital, a long-term care facility or at home. It is projected that long-term care facilities will need 66% more RNs by 2020 (Addressing the Nursing). The increase in life expectancy has amplified the complexity of health care because more people are living with chronic conditions. The American Nurses Association reported that “a large cross-sectional study of over 1,000,000 adults revealed that 82% had one or more chronic conditions” and we are seeing an increase of those age 65 and older living with multiple chronic conditions (Mion). Now, more than ever, there is a high demand for the best delivery of medical care.
There is a shortage of all health care professions throughout the United States. One shortage in particular that society should be very concerned about is the shortage of Registered Nurses. Registered Nurses make up the single largest healthcare profession in the United States. A registered nurse is a vital healthcare professional that has earned a two or four year degree and has the upper-most responsibility in providing direct patient care and staff management in a hospital or other treatment facilities (Registered Nurse (RN) Degree and Career Overview., 2009). This shortage issue is imperative because RN's affect everyone sometime in their lifetime. Nurses serve groups, families and individuals to foster
As the demand for home visits from nurses increases its necessities a need to prevent avoidable hospitalizations, it is critical to attract and prepare more nurses for roles in home care. The residency program would have input from the California Association for Health Services Home and the Infusion Nurse Society.
Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.
For six years I have been a Patient Care Technician, also known as a PCT. Currently employed by a hospital, I have decided to further my education and become a Registered Nurse. Both of these jobs are similar in a few ways, such as both health care jobs and require hands-on patient care. They can also be very different as well. Being a nurse and a patient care technician are different in the following ways: types of patient care, responsibilities, and the required education.
To add to the complexity of nursing there are so many different fields in which you can work such as staff nurse, charge nurse, OR nurse, administrative nurse, school nurse, etc…Kristine is currently in the field of home care working as a bedside nurse. She decided to get into bedside nursing in the home health care field for a number of reasons including one-to-one patient care, the chance to create a flexible schedule that is conducive to the demands of raising a family, stress reduction, the autonomy of home care, and the ability to bless entire families as opposed to just one patient. Kristine pointed out how she enjoys being able to attend to the problem of caregiver role- strain in the family in addition to caring for the patient,
Hederson, S., Princell, C. O., and Martin, S. (2012, December). The patient-centered medical home. American Journal of Nursing, 112(12), 54 59. doi: 10.1097/
One of the suggestions is for licensed practical nurses and registered nurses to incorporate health care education and counseling, using evidenced based clinical guidelines, to patients with chronic conditions through continued care offered via home visits and telephone follow-up calls (Institute of Medicine, 2010). It is also recommended to utilize APRNs as primary care providers in both outpatient and inpatient settings as this decreases the provider to patio ratio thus potentially enhancing the quality of care, and it allows the APRNs to practice to their fullest abilities (Institute of Medicine, 2010). APRNs participating as primary care providers widen the opportunity for health promotion, disease prevention, and limiting disabilities via early diagnosis and treatment. Transformation to a health care system driven by primary care practice as suggested by the IOM report will create a more qualified, accessible, and value driven health care system (Tri-Council for Nursing, 2010).
Have you ever gone to the Doctors before? The person who weighed you and took your temperature before you got to see the doctor was a nurse. A Nurse is – (verb) 1 to take care of (as a young child or a sick person) 2 to treat with special care ("Webster's dictionary & thesauras for students”). One thing I knew before I started researching is there are many different kinds of nursing. In this paper I will be exploring two different branches of nursing Hospice and Home Health Care.
With over three million nurses in the United States nurses play an important role in healthcare today. As the future of health care changes the nurses’ role will change as well. In 2008, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) combined partnership and put together a committee to assess nursing practices and make recommendations for the future transformations in the health care system. This report was released in 2010 and included four key components in which three will be discussed in this paper.
First of all, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ARHQ, n.d.) a medical home is not a home, but a concept of a primary care practice that incorporates a variety of medical services under one roof. This is where a patient will receive care from an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists for a variety of health needs, and this care will treat the patient’s health needs as a whole. This type of patient-centered care can be obtained at a community
The role that nurse practitioner (NP) plays within the increasing complex health care system is a constant changing role with the Consensus Model and the introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The scope of the nurse practitioner (NP) includes the care of the young, the old, the sick and the well. The educational needs of a nurse practitioner vary greatly from that of a Registered Nurse (RN), in the amount of education as well as the focus of the education. NPs provide coordinated primary care with the use of comprehensive health histories and physical examinations, diagnosing and treating acute and chronic illnesses, the management of medications and therapies, ordering and interpreting tests results, and educating and
Changes in the Health Care System and the Practice of Nursing have become complex. Technological changes, complicated client needs, short hospital length of stay, and departure from acute care to community based care, all these changes have underscore the need for professional nurses to think critically in order to provide safe and effective client care. A better educated nursing workforce can provide good health education to patients and their families. The affordable care of 2010 has required the need for nurses to expand their role of practice to meet complicated patient demands. This has prompted the Institute Of Medicine to review the “Future of Nursing, Leading change and Advancing Health”. {Creasia & Fribery,2011}
Upon considering the past and future of nursing, many changes have already taken place, and even larger changes are expected. With the recent rate of technological development, the heath care system is certain to follow in its advances at nearly the same pace. Many predictions for the future of medicine are based on computerized technology. The use of telemonitoring, video and “smart houses” are already being used by some companies today, and will be utilized more frequently in the future. This will enable one nurse to care for many more patients than he/she is capable of safely caring for currently. This is very important due to the baby-boomer generation growing older and the