Home health care consists of specialized and medically necessary services prescribed by a doctor for the treatment of an illness, injury, or medical condition. Home health care includes a wide range of services you can receive at home in the event of an illness or injury. Home health care is often less expensive, more convenient, and as effective as the care you receive at a hospital or skilled nursing facility (SNF). Home health care allows eligible patients who are recovering from injuries, illnesses, or chronic conditions to stay where they feel most comfortable: at home.
This can be especially beneficial for older adults.
Home health care services can help you recover after surgery, illness, or injury in the comfort of your home
. They can also be a great help in helping people with a chronic illness or disability to regain their independence. Home health care is also one of the most personal types of care because it is provided at home. Our healthcare professionals play an important role in listening to your concerns and understanding your medical needs.Together with your doctor, we create a personal care plan for you. We keep your doctor up to date on your condition, which translates into better outcomes and more support for you and your family. These services are administered by trained health professionals, including nurses, therapists, assistants and doctors. Health systems, doctors and researchers must better engage home care nurses to understand their workflow, information needs, patients and work environments. However, some of these changes are relatively inexpensive and easy to implement, and researchers and health systems should consider them as an initial intervention.
Improving information exchange with home health care would likely prevent some of those hospitalizations. Improving communication and education about these high-risk issues for patients could address the most dangerous safety issues in home care. Not only does this level of care often cost less, but it can also reduce hospital readmissions, which can be a financial burden. For example, hospitals often have standard discharge instructions provided to the patient and, perhaps, to the primary care physician, summarizing what happened at the hospital, new treatments or medications, and other important information. Home health care not only benefits patients, but it also supports family members, who often act as primary caregivers.
An important benefit of home health care is that it is based on evidence-based practices and standards of care to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right time. This work was supported by the NLM Grant (5 T15 LM007059-24), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS01872) and grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01AG027017; P30AG024827; K07AG03317). Research has found that home care staff and informal caregivers can play a role in a substantial subset of adverse events that cause hospitalizations13, although more research is needed to understand the nature of the interaction. About 13% of patients receiving home care experience an adverse event9,10 The highest proportion of adverse events that occur among home care patients are drug-related, and between 20 and 33% experience a problem with the medication or an adverse event with the medication11,12.
