What is Home Health Care?
Home Health Care is medical care delivered in the comfort of the patient’s home, whilst being surrounded by family and friends, which gives a sense of overwhelming comfort to the lamented near and dear ones. A patient may feel lonely in the premise of the hospital especially if he/she is suffering from a long term illness which can be discarded by this contemporary Health Care Services. The gamut of medical care that a person can receive from the comfort of their house is immense, which can be broadly classified into care for elderly, care for patients, care for babies and mothers. The demand for home medical care has drastically surged as many treatments that once could be cured just in the hospital premises now can be done in the comfort of homes due to the advancement in Science and Technology.
Depending on the condition and illness of the patient, home care can vary from basic nursing care; dressing and bathing, therapy and rehabilitation, nursing for disability; to special care for the patients; recovering from surgery, enduring chronic conditions, even requiring assistance for day to day health care. All the care is provided by the professional caregivers such as:
Doctor Consultation:
A Doctor may visit the patient at home for health checkups, review the health status, recommend diagnostics, suggest a treatment plan thereby helping the patient recover from the illness.
Non Medical Home Health Care:
It is about providing assistance for Personal Care and Companionship and does not involve any medical skill;services include helping in eating, bathing, personal hygiene, dressing, toileting, preparing meals, shopping, house cleaning, laundry, preventing falls and injuries and also providing emotional support and companionship.
Medical Home Health Care:
This type of health care is given by medically well trained professionals, like nurses; services include dressing wounds, giving injections etc.
Critical Care:
It is an intensive care provided by the health care experts for patients suffering from life threatening illness, acute diseases and severe injuries. With an infrastructure at home akin ICU makes a patient recuperate expeditiously.
Physiotherapy:
It is a home based care wherein the physiotherapist will assess, diagnose, treat the ailment and assist to recover from the temporary physical disability and physical functions after an injury or illness.
Speech Therapy:
To assist patients in their cognitive impairments, speech therapists are required to help overcome this critical dysfunction. To reduce the burden of the patient this assistance is provided at home so that the patient saves the energy and time thereby saving energy for a significant therapy session.
Mother and Baby Home Care:
It is to ease the burden and facilitate post natal mother and baby care at home, which otherwise requires a lot of care, attention, guidance and support for rehabilitation and early mobilization. Furthermore, it includes counseling on a healthy and nutritious diet in the postpartum period.
Nutritionist:
Adequate healthy nutritious diet is a vital part of health care, this facility consists of ensuring that patients receive sufficient dietary assessment, guidance and nutritional sustenance at home by expert Dietitians.
Counseling:
It is a Talking Therapy, wherein a person is encouraged to pour out their heart in a private and confidential milieu without the fear of being judged. After a deep comprehension of the patient, the counselor then suggests and guides to reform and thus ameliorate the status quo.
Lab Tests:
Certain Lab tests can be performed in the comfort of the patient’s home without getting into the hassle of queues. Some of the tests done at home or lab samples collected from home are Diabetes, Urine, Blood, Blood Pressure, Hypertension, Antenatal, Cardiac tests in addition to X-Rays which can be done by portable machines.
Medical Equipment Rent and Purchase:
Renting or buying medical equipment has never been this convenient. Depending on the ailment the patient has, the respective equipment can either be purchased or rented during the struggling phase of the patient’s life; thereby helping to recover within the comfort of the familial ambience.