The Role of Home Health and Hospice in Current Society’s Health Care System
In today’s practicing healthcare, home health, and hospice care serve significant roles as they are patient and customer-oriented services. These services are special because they are oriented to those people who have certain physical and health issues but want to get medical assistance and care without going out of their own homes.
This action not only improves the quality of life of patients but also has a host of advantages to the families and the complete health system.
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Home Health Care: Effective Medical Treatment to Patients in the Comfort of Their Homes
Home health care as its name implies is services that are provided to patients who are ill but do not necessitate hospitalization. This type of care is usually delivered by a collaborative approach from a team of health providers including nurses, physical therapist and occupational therapist. Such services include wound care services, administration of medications, patient physical therapy, and supervision of chronic ailments.
The first and one of the most considerable benefits of having home health care is the aspect of individualized patient care. Every client is offered a treatment program that will address his or her unique medical condition, course, and objectives.
But most significantly, with this kind of approach, not only does the patient receive better treatment, but also the perception of the hospital by the patient is also bound to be positive. Also, home health care enables beneficiaries to obtain treatments and be confined within the comfort of their home, which greatly enhances their psychological and emotional well-being.
Hospice Care: This Service Focuses On Giving Palliative Care For Those In Their Final Days Of Life
Hospice, however, is centered on meeting the needs of a patient in a terminal stage of a disease. The purpose of hospice care is to neither treat the disease but support the patient to live as comfortably and as well as possible in the time left. Hospice includes administration of pain; psychological help and getting assisted with basic needs to enable patients have a decent and comfortable death.
This is good because hospice care involves the development and implementation of a care plan, which acknowledges not only the physical, but also the person’s emotional, social and spiritual well-being. Hospice usually comprises of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals such as social workers, chaplains and they even have volunteers who help them.
The all-encompassing care offered by this organization eases the burden of facing the most crucial and potentially traumatic time in a sick person’s life and are of great assistance to families during their darkest hour.
Advantages of the Concept to the Healthcare System
Independent home health and hospice care also have many positive implications for the rest of the overall healthcare system. As the services offer care at home it prevents early admission to the hospital and early placement in a long-term care facility. This in turn helps in decreasing the over-all expenditure of a health further; thus it can help in decreasing the burden on the health care system.
Moreover, home care can reduce the instances of patients getting readmitted into the hospital which is expensive and potentially hazardous to the patient’s health.
Enhancing Quality of Life
While the two industries of home health and hospice care are drastically different, they both are focused on improving the physical as well as the psychological wellbeing of the patient. To the clients getting home health care, this implies regaining of independence and optimizing of functioning. In the case of hospice patients it means that, they and their families get to spend their final days in comfort without compromising the dignity of the patients.
Close associates of the patients also stand to gain a lot from these services the services benefit the families of patients in the following ways. Home health care offers families the services that enable them to care for their relatives; hospice care offers client and his/her family/loved ones support during the difficult phase of their life.
This has a holistic effect of ensuring that the patients, as well as their families, get the appropriate care and attention they require.