Different Types of Home Health Care Professionals
There are a lot of different professionals that work in home health care. Home health care in Chesterfield needs a wide variety of workers with a wide range of skills and professional training.
Non-Certified Aides – This group of professionals are also known as personal care aides or home helpers. They help their patients, or clients, with custodial, supportive, and long-term personal care. The duties they do consists of daily housekeeping, meal preparation, and companionship. This classification has various different job titles, duties, and costs of care. Many of these professionals are privately hired by the families of the patient/client. Also, many of them work for non-medical agencies that help families in need with trained professionals.
Certified Aides – This classification includes certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and home health aides (HHAs). This is the group where education, training, and certification is required in order to get these types of job titles. They are required to take state exams and gain certification and registration. The level of care they offer is a little more than those of the non-certified aides. They help their patients with things like ambulation, nutrition, medicine administration, toileting, and health monitoring (i.e. blood pressure or blood sugar). They also take care of wound and bedsore treatment, tube feedings, and catheter and ostomy care. They, many times, make medical observations that they will report back to their supervising registered nurses and physicians.
Nurses – This group includes licensed practical nurses (also known as licensed vocational nurses) and registered nurses. These are the highly skilled, highly trained, and state-certified professional nurses. Aside from a doctor, this classification of professionals can draw blood, make serious and skilled observations, put in IVs, and anything that a nurse in a hospital is qualified to do.
Therapists – This group includes physical, occupational, and speech therapists. They assist in rehabilitation and help restore mobility, strength, dexterity, balance, and communication after an illness or injury. They work to help the patient regain their maximum function with regards to activities of daily living.
Social Workers – There are two different types of social workers: licensed and medical social workers. LSWs evaluate the social, emotional, and environmental factors that affect the patient. They also help to counsel the families and patients that are experiencing a crisis. MSWs help to identify and locate the appropriate resources that their client needs.
Whether it is home health care in Macomb, Chesterfield or Sterling Heights it requires a team to get the patient the care they need and deserve. Every one of the professionals is a necessary part of the home health system that makes it a viable option for many of its patients and their families.