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Working As A Hospital Nurse And Being A Home Care

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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

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