November is National Care at Home Month! It has also been known as Home Care, Hospice and Palliative Care Month, but National Care at Home Month came about to recognize our entire care-at-home community. It is a month to honor all professionals who work in the broad field of home healthcare. These at-home services include home health, personal care (also known as home care), hospice care, and palliative care. The professionals making these services possible range from physicians, nurses and personal care aides to social workers, physical therapists and so much more.
As seniors choose to age in place, their home becomes their sanctuary. At-home services are not just convenient—they're a lifeline for those in need! From chronic care to post-surgery support and wound management, the home healthcare continuum ensures comfort and healing in the familiar surroundings of home. These services not only ensure dignity and comfort, but also provide invaluable emotional and practical support, empowering these patients to live comfortably and safely.
Let’s take a look at each discipline within the home healthcare continuum.
The term “home health” includes a wide range of healthcare services that can be provided in the home to treat an illness or injury. Home healthcare is usually less expensive, more convenient, and just as effective as care you receive in a hospital or skilled nursing facility. In fact, patients typically experience better recovery at home with fewer hospital admissions. There are no truer words than “there’s no place like home!”
Hopefully I do not need to provide much overview on personal care since that’s what Care Advantage does. You all should know what we do, right? A few key reminders: we can provide 24-hour care wherever a patient calls home; we work alongside home health, palliative, and hospice care teams; we help with all ADLs, IADLs and so much more; we are the missing link for many older patients who live alone, have a history of emergency room visits, and are at a high risk of falling. And let’s not forget that Care Advantage continues to do this with accessibility, affordability, and award-winning care!
So, let’s dive into home health, palliative care and hospice care, as these are often misunderstood.
Home Health care can be provided to patients in the home if they need part-time or intermittent skilled services and are homebound. This means that leaving the home is not recommended due to a patient’s condition, the patient is unable to leave your home because it is a major effort, and/or the patient is simply too ill or injured to leave home.
Home Health can provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, wound care, patient and family education, intravenous or nutritional therapy, injections, monitoring of serious illness, durable medical equipment, and medical social services. A doctor or other health care provider (like a nurse practitioner) must assess a patient face-to-face to order Home Health services.
Palliative care assists patients with serious, complex and terminal illnesses, such as cancer, heart failure or chronic lung disease, helping them stay at home. They will also assist with life-prolonging curative treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation, or even physical and occupational therapy, that continue to improve the patient’s quality of life. Palliative can also assist in managing symptoms like shortness of breath, pain, depression, anxiety, constipation, nausea, and loss of appetite. The palliative team will work with the patient’s current medical team and assist with providing resources and equipment.
Hospice helps patients live out their remaining days with the best quality of life, helps them achieve lifelong goals, and helps to manage their symptoms. Hospice care helps patients with advanced, life-limiting illnesses. When the patient has decided with their doctor that there are no other curative options and they want to focus on quality vs. quantity of life, they can accept hospice services at any time. Hospice care provides any medications, supplies and equipment needed to provide relief of symptoms and improve quality of life—all while avoiding hospitalization for the patient.
Hospice has honestly been overlooked by far too many families as an incredible late-life benefit for their loved one. Many people put off hospice care until it’s too late. My own family did the same, and I have major regrets for not having my mom enrolled in the program sooner. I have learned so much about hospice and the entire home healthcare continuum during my tenure with Care Advantage, my only wish is that I could go back and do things differently for both of my parents. But you don’t know what you don’t know! My calling now is to help guide other families in the ways I wish my family had been.
I will close with this: the home healthcare continuum is not only there to provide care in the home for patients, but it supports the family because we recognize that they are struggling too. When a patient receives a diagnosis, the whole family is impacted. Take advantage of the services that are available to keep patients where they want to be, and to take the burden off of families! There is nothing more important than spending quality time with a loved one, so do not allow yourself to be tied up in the minutia that someone else can handle. It will be there for you one day when your loved one is not.
