7 Benefits Of Primary Home Care Services
7 Benefits Of Primary Home Care Services
As its name implies, primary home care services mean that care is provided to the patient in need. It can apply to patients of all ages for as long as the need for continuous and regular medical care is present. As its name suggests, the patient gets to stay at home, where help goes to them rather than the patient’s day-to-day life getting disrupted by having to go to the hospital frequently.
Primary home care services can encompass care and attention given by a wide range of medical professionals, from doctors, nurses, caregivers, and even therapists. Hiring home care is an excellent option that allows the patient to receive their medical needs safely while at home. Hands-on care is given not just for the patient’s physical needs but also for their emotional, social, and psychological well-being.
This article lists some of the most promising benefits of home care services from Communityhcp.com to convince you that it may be the best choice for your family if such is needed.
- It Provides Medical Professionals Who Can Be There In Your Absence
While you love your patients so much and would love to give them the full attention they need, it is not all the time that doing so is the best and most practical choice. If you have a job to attend to, there has to be that balance of caring for your sick or aging family member while still having a sense of normalcy especially in your professional life.
It is true when there are so many bills to be paid. It can be more disrupting to the family’s life and schedule when the patient has to go to the hospital to receive care that they otherwise had an opportunity to receive at home through primary care. With this better option, there are medical professionals to care for your patients during those hours when you’re absent.
Stress and trouble in the household can pile up when certain family members feel like there’s too much on their hands. Perhaps their social life has suffered, or they can barely go out to do errands or have a breather. You can continue doing all those with primary care professionals who can be there in your absence.
Better yet, the patient’s care isn’t left with anyone. It’s with medical professionals you can trust to have medical expertise and professionalism to provide no less than the best care.
- It Comes With A Varied Range Of Services You Can Choose From
Primary care services aren’t limited only to medical services. Companies that provide those types of services have a wide range to offer, so you can choose what you need.
It’s a stark contrast to hospital care where the care is given may be constricted only to the doctor’s instructions based on the patient’s medical needs. If the patient is unable to tend to their other personal needs, then a family member still has to be present in the hospital to address those needs.
With primary care, you can choose many services depending on your patient’s needs and situations. Some of the common types include:
- Personal care and companionship. It includes help with everyday activities like household tasks, bathing, meal preparation, and safety in the kitchen.
- Home health care. It refers to a type of physician-directed care to help a patient recover from an illness or injury they recently suffered from. These can encompass home health aid services, physical therapy, medical social work, occupational therapy, and speech and language pathology.
- Private duty nursing care. It’s a type of long-term medical care for patients suffering from chronic diseases or illnesses in terminal stage. You’ll expect to receive services like catheter care, care for conditions like traumatic brain injury, feeding tube care, or ventilator care.
- It May Provide Better Quality Care
The fact that primary home care services may be better quality care than what’s given in hospitals isn’t to say that hospital care should be taken as inferior. When doctors deem it non-negotiable and necessary for the patient to be confined in the hospital, then there’s no way to get around this need. Doctors and nurses take their job seriously, so you can still trust that your patient is in good hands while in the hospital.
Thus, the better-quality care being talked about here, however, is because of the one-on-one patient-caregiver ratio that can be enjoyed with home care. When healthcare professionals focus only on one patient, their attention isn’t divided. It can significantly increase the quality of care when your patient doesn’t have to share the hours of a medical worker with others.
- It Brings In Continuity Of Care
In the hospital setting, the care of patients isn’t really continuous when nurses and caregivers work on different shifts. Before a nurse goes off duty, it’s their job to endorse the charts of every patient to the next nurse in charge. This is an effective means to ensure good hospital care, but in terms of continuity of medical care, even that practice still can’t compete with the effectiveness and efficiency of having just one health worker taking care of the patient all throughout.
From the morning to the evening, there’s one caregiver taking care of your patient. Having a single health worker who has seen the patient through all their concerns from simple stomach aches to bigger ones like the dispensing of their regular medication means having a valuable health resource with someone who has mastered the patient’s medical history.
This comes in handy especially during those doctor’s appointments. Doctors have to ask about the patient’s history from the previous days in order for them to give the best treatment plan and diagnosis for the patient.
- It Fosters Greater Independence For The Patient
Just because there’s a health worker helping the patient with their daily needs doesn’t mean that their independence will significantly decline. In fact, the opposite may be true. A higher level of independence may be fostered with primary home care when patients can practice going about their usual routine, now that there’s someone with them all the time to ensure they’re safe.
For example, without primary home care, the family may tend to bathe the patient themselves just to get this over with and to avoid slips and other accidents. Now that there’s a caregiver to do it on behalf of the family, they can practice with the patient so independence can be restored and maintained.
- It Offers Social Opportunities And Companionship
Companionship is another thing given by primary home care that hospitals can’t compete simply because of the carer-to-patient ratio. Nurses working in hospitals have a lot of other patients to care for, so no matter how caring they may be to their patients, the time they can spend with each one would still be limited. Thus, with home care, there’s no time constraint, so the patient is never alone.
It brings the discussion back to those days or times when other family members had to go to work. During those hours, the patient feels less alone when there’s a caregiver beside them.
Moreover, with primary home care, the patient may also have more opportunities to enjoy social activities. It can be as simple as visiting their friend’s house, going to the supermarket, or even slowly attending classes. The patient can move around now that there’s a health worker to look for their safety.
- It Reduces Stress Levels On The Family
It can be very stressful for the family when their affairs aren’t in order anymore because they have to take care of the family’s medical and health needs. It’s true, especially if the responsibility is with just one family member.
And when a family member is sick, physically challenged, or mentally ill, it can be a 24/7 job to take care of their needs. Add that to all the other responsibilities to face like a job and young children, and it can create chaos in the household.
For everyone’s peace and sanity, it’s definitely a good idea to spend it on hiring primary home care. The expense allocated for it will be worth it when the family is happier and less stressed out.
Likewise, it can be hard to take care of the health and physical needs of a family member when you can no longer focus on doing it out of love as you’re always consistently stressed out. The patient needs all the love and care, and that can only happen when the family is happy, relaxed, and contented.
Final Thoughts
For senior patients, making use of primary home care services allows them to age in place rather than having them sent to a home institution. If the patient is a young adult or a child, the patient stays in the loving comfort of their home with their whole family present than having the family adjust to life in the hospital. As you can see, there are many reasons why opting for primary home care as the better choice for your family. When you find a quality primary home care provider, you can trust that the patient is in good hands.
