What is home nursing and the importance of home nursing??????

define home nursing??

home nursing is when a nurse comes to your house and takes care of you because you're too old or crippled to take care of yourself and your family is too lazy to take care of you or they don't want you.

Im assuming you mean home health agencies. These agencies provide services to patients who either do not need to remain in an acute setting, or who are not in need of a long term care setting.


There are many different services offered though home health. Different forms of therapy (OT, PT, Speech), Nursing services, or nurse aide services.

An actually home health nurse as in RN or LPN would give acute care in the home setting. For instance....Perhaps a pt has had open surgery. This individual may no longer need to be in a hospital setting, but may require sterile dressing changes. A home health nurse would come in on an established schedule to do dressing changes and general assessment.

More commonly you think of home health as providing nurse aide care to the elderly. Which is not its only purpose. In these cases an elderly individual who is safe to live alone (but may need assistance) receives care from a nurse aide. These NAs come on a regular basis. They help with ADLS (activities of daily living) such as grooming, feeding, etc. They will get the pt up, bathed, dressed, fix breakfast, and do a little house work (washing dishes, sweeping, etc)

Nurses come in and do med planners for these patients as well. They get those little daily pill dispensers and pull out the pts medicine for a week and set out insulin for them.

Why is it important? To provide a continum of care. To provide proper follow through for acute care cases. Which can prevent relapse of condition, acquired infection, etc. Or to provide the elderly with assistance so that they can maintain their independent living. Its cheaper on Medicare and Medicaid to pay home health agencies then to kick out the cash for Long term care. That and the government has always moved towards home care vs. an institution. Think about it...what ever happened to all the psych hospitals. Mental health is now an outpatient based service.