What Is Home Health Care?
At its most basic level, home health care is exactly what the name suggests: “It’s care for someone within their home,” says Joe Pecora Jr., vice president of Home Healthcare Workers of America, a national union representing home healthcare workers.
The type of care varies. Depending on a person’s needs, home health care can consist of medical care like wound care and/or non-medical care like help with bathing or meal preparation.
Different Types of Home Health Care
There are two primary types of home health care:
Medical Care
This type of home health care—often called skilled care—is provided by a medical professional, such as a physician, registered nurse or physical therapist. Services they could provide include wound care and physical, occupational and speech therapy, says Yount. Other potential services include patient and caregiver education, injections and nutrition therapy. Medical home health care is prescribed by a doctor.
Non-Medical Care
Non-medical care includes “assistance with activities of daily living—so, things like bathing, dressing, meal preparation, transportation to and from physician appointments, running errands, shopping and housekeeping,” says Yount. It’s provided by home health or home care aides.
What to Expect From Home Health Care
When a new patient signs up for home care Concern Care Partners, a home care provider in Southern California, a registered nurse meets with the family at home to understand their goals and exactly what services they need. The nurse then prepares a detailed personalized care plan, says Anthony Malone, the company’s Office Manager and Care Advisor. That meeting helps Concern Care Partners to “match a caregiver with the right skills, the right personality and the right schedule compatibility with the individual we’re going to be taking care of in their home,” says Malone. He stresses that anyone signing up for high-quality home care should expect a similar process.
Once home health care starts, the patient and provider work together to determine the appropriate days and hours for visits. “It varies greatly—from one hour at a time to 24-hour care.”
In addition to hands-on care for a patient, home care providers “act as a liaison,” assisting with communication between the patient and their healthcare team.
Benefits of Home Care
There are many benefits to home health care, experts say. Most obviously, it allows seniors to stay at home instead of having to relocate to a facility.
Home care also reduces loneliness among seniors, which can improve their mental and physical health, says Malone. He points out that during the coronavirus pandemic, home care aides were often the only people patients saw. “They form a bond,” says Malone. “They become part of the family because they’re spending hours—[sometimes] multiple days of the week—with the person.” Sometimes the patient and caregiver even vacation together, he says.
Home care can also help reduce hospital readmissions. For instance, in one systematic review of patients with heart failure, those who received nurse visits at home experienced fewer hospital readmissions and less mortality for up to six months after they were discharged from the hospital compared to patients who didn’t receive home care visits.