Home Nursing - What You Should Know First

Normally, any individual desiring of health care treatment for his body condition approaches a health care setting. Based on a doctor's advice, he gets admitted in the clinic or receives outpatient care. With home nursing, individuals can now receive healthcare treatment in their homes. This form of healthcare treatment is useful for people who can't move out of their homes due to any impairment.

This type of nursing is also useful for elderly people who can't travel distances to get admitted into a health care setting. In fact, in more than 80% of cases where people have volunteered for home nurses have said that the hospital or the clinic was too far from their homes, and they would ideally like the treatment to be provided in their homes.

Home nurses normally attend to patients who suffer from chronic ailments like heart diseases, high blood pressure and so on. Such patients would always need services as mentioned below.

- The feeding tubes need to be changed regularly
- Urine catheters need to be cleaned, disposed and new catheters need to be installed
- Wounds need to be dressed
- Blood sugar levels need to be checked regularly
- Injections if any, to be provided.

Home nurses accomplish these tasks, easily as well as professionally too. This allows elderly people, who are non-ambulant to stay in their homes with their loved ones, while the home nurses take care of their healthcare needs.

Home nursing is less expensive than staying in the hospital or the health care clinic. Getting treated in home reduces expenses by 30%, as you don't have to pay for the bed charges and doctor's visit if the patient would have been in the hospital. That being said, these home nurses wouldn't be able to provide medical advice for the patient's illness, so it is extremely important that the patient gets proper and prompt advice from a doctor.

Home nurses thus simplify the whole process of patient recovery post medical treatment. A lot of these nurses do this form of nursing as private practice.

Before hiring a nurse though, be sure you have checked their credentials. It is important for you to have a nurse who knows what she is doing. Normally, these nurses only follow the administrative and medical procedures laid out by the doctor for the patient. Having a professional and a credible nurse does help in speedy patient recovery and is the best thing to happen for the patient.