Institute for Continuing Education

Home Care Essentials

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Conduct functional assessments.
• Predict patient/client independence in the home by using outcome measurements and addressing functional ability.
• Identify barriers and develop interventions to address them.
• Establish a patient/client care plan based on appropriate patient/client learning needs.
• Explain the home care rehabilitative/restorative process.
• Identify current infection control practices in home care and hospice.
• Discuss the effectiveness of current practices.
• Defend infection control practices that vary from traditional practice.
• Recognize specific changes related to aging.
• Identify teaching adaptations needed by elderly patients.

Course Information

Respiratory care practitioners (RCPs) have been providing respiratory care services in the home setting for decades, but until recently "respiratory home care" has been viewed as a site of care rather than as a specialty area of practice. This all changed with the formation of the Home Care Specialty Section within the American Association for Respiratory Care in 1994. Prior to this momentous step, home care was largely looked on as a place for clinicians who were "burned out" from working in the more traditional acute care setting. The value of the home care RCP in the overall management of patients with chronic pulmonary disease went virtually unnoticed. Respiratory therapy educational programs were not graduating students whose career goals included home care; rather, students¹ goals following graduation were to go into either acute or neonatal critical care, management, or education. One might "retire" to home care if one did not leave the profession altogether.

How things have changed! Home care is now widely recognized as the fastest growing segment of the nation¹s healthcare delivery system. Further, with the notion of transitional care now firmly embedded as an integral part of healthcare restructuring, home care is viewed by many as the most appropriate manner to effectively manage most chronic medical conditions. For patients afflicted with chronic pulmonary diseases, their ability to receive optimum home care services is directly dependent on the availability of a competent, highly trained, and committed home care RCP. Time and experience have proved that there is no acceptable substitute. Indeed, then, the role (and value) of the home care RCP has never been greater, and the opportunities for professional and personal growth remain boundless.

The main focus of this module is home respiratory care: the elements of a successful home visit, patient assessment, infection control, documentation and patient teaching.