Home Health Aide Dos and Don’ts
Here are a few tips to follow when you are working as a home health aide. Following these simple rules will help you to provide the best possible care for your patient and will solidify a long lasting relationship with your agency.
Do:
- Report all changes in your patient’s status to the nurse and your agency.
- Ask someone if you have a question regarding your patient.
- Follow your patient’s care plan.
- Call your agency if you are unsure about anything.
- Get to work on time and accurately document your time.
- Follow your agencies’ rules regarding dress code and conduct.
- Make sure to keep your physical and in-services up to date.
Don’t:
- Treat your patients roughly.
- Rush through patient care.
- Smoke in the patient’s home.
- Create conflict in the work place.
- Use profanity.
- Wear perfume and dangling jewelry.
- Borrow or accept any money.
- Speak to anyone about the patient’s condition your supervisor or those directly involved in the patients care.
Thank you for your tip to report all changes to the patient status to the nurse and agency. My mother’s health is declining fast but she doesn’t want to live in a nursing home so we’re getting her home health care. I’ll be sure to talk to the health care person about reporting all changes to my mother to the appropriate people.
What if the patient asks you to perform extra duty without the knowledge of the agency that employed you?
It is good to know that I will want to make sure that you report all of your patient’s changes to the health care agency. That is good for me to understand because I want to get a home health care professional to help my grandfather. It does seem like I should consider finding one that is good at communicating.
My grandfather needs to go into a nursing home or get an in-home aid this winter. Thanks for explaining that I will want to consider finding someone who can handle all of the physical elements of the job. My grandfather can’t walk so I would need to get him someone who could help get him into his wheelchair.