The nursing department has various employees who are charged with the responsibility of attending to the needs of the different patients in different ways. Some of these responsibilities require attending directly to the needs of the patients while others involve ensuring that the patients get the best healthcare that they need from their environment. As such, it will involve meeting the needs of the different clients by ensuring that the health professionals in the department meet the expectations of the patients. For this interview, Virginia Reyes was interviewed, and she works as a home health aide in the institution. Her role involves directly relating to the patients and the other health professionals in the institution in conducting health activities in the institution and at home.
The primary responsibility in the hospital
The primary responsibility involves enabling the patients to stay in their homes through monitoring and recording of their condition, providing personal and support services. I also teach families about different healthcare needs and expectations with regards to their patient in the institution or their general health condition.
Expansion on these responsibilities.
I support the patients by providing housekeeping services such as shopping, cleaning around the house, doing laundry, preparing and serving meals to the patients. In the process, I am responsible for observing the patient condition by observing the physical and the mental condition, providing support and personal services and teaching families.
The responsibilities with regards to the healthcare services of the patient at home?
I record patient information on a daily basis by entering them in a patient journal, informing the supervisor of the changes that they patient is making and their expectation about their health status. Alongside this role, I am also responsible for educating the families about their roles in creating an atmosphere where the patient can heal quicker and be comfortable around them (Winter & Haux, 2011).
The people attended to in the process of meeting your responsibilities?
I attend to those who are sick, and they receive their healthcare services from their homes. Those includes the category of patients who have illnesses that have been treated in the hospital but are healing back at home. Another group of people that I attend to include those who are aged and they would favor to get their end-of-life upkeep at home. These are those who have been diagnosed as having terminal illnesses, and they would prefer to have their health services from home for one reason or the other. As I go about these responsibilities, I get in touch with their doctors and tell them of the patient’s progress so that they can evaluate their condition and instruct me on how to hand the situation.
The career path to this point?
I did a Diploma in nursing, and I have done internship programs with various health institutions. I have been convoluted in numerous community agendas, and this has given me the platform from which I can be able to get different perceptions about health requirements.
What are the educational requirements for this position?
One needs to have a Diploma in Nursing and some experience in nursing in home setting.
Education preparedness for the position
The education I acquired adequately prepared me for this position from different perspectives. One, in-home care assistance, we learned about what the patients expect from the services they ask for and how to deliver such kinds of services. I learned that the only way that patients get satisfaction from the services that they ask for is when the healthcare practitioner surpasses their expectations. Secondly, we happened to learn about the impact of evidence-based healthcare delivery. Here, I learned that I need to protect the homecare agency by adhering to the professional standards, home care policies and procedures, the federal, the state and the local requirements. This means that in the process of performing my responsibilities I had to maintain a safe and healthy environment for the patient by following the required standards of hygiene, maintenance of security precautions and sticking to the dietary requirements. The most significant part of my training for this career at this point is the fact that most of my training was very practical and I would have the opportunity of getting to experience what patients want with regards to home care assistance (Winter & Haux, 2011).
The similar positions like in other organizations
The similarity in positions will depend on the nature of management in the setting that the home health aide is expected to deliver healthcare services. In some of the places, there are more patients, and this means increased responsibility while in other areas there are less who require minimal health care services. At the end of the day, what determines what a home health aide does in a particular setting in the nature of expectations and the complexity of the situation they are dealing with.
The most important attribute for success in your position
One needs to be very patient with the work or even the patients. At times, home health aides have to work under very strenuous pressure. It means that such professionals have to realize that they need to help the patients and the other healthcare professionals to fit in the setting and work with the conditions that they are experiencing. Further, given that at times the pressure can be too much, having patience minimizes chances of making mistakes of omission or even commission in one way of the other. For the institution as a whole or the other professionals in the same setting, they have to ensure that they maintain customer care all the time in connection with other departments so as to ensure quality (Kushniruk & Borycki, 2008).
Adaptation to the position to the changes in healthcare
As more people realize the importance of home health services especially with regards to the special population such as the aged, institutions and people alike will embrace the need to come up with flexible healthcare practices that maximize on the need to deliver quality assistance. These changes will be more inclined to ensuring the patients get the best out of the home health aide assistance all the time.
The role in the context of the broader healthcare industry
The role have a real time experience with the patient in the home setting and provide feedback as to what the patients expect from the health professionals., it is about connecting what happens on the ground with what is expected from a theoretical point of view. The patient will be more pleased if what is in the ground connects well with his expectations in the theoretical point of view.
References
Winter, A., & Haux, R. (2011). Health information systems: Architectures and strategies. London: Springer.
Kushniruk, A. W., & Borycki, E. (2008). Human, social, and organizational aspects of health information systems. Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference.
