25 Apr Don’t Misunderstand Home-Health Care!

Someone recently made a remark about the ‘baby-sitting nature’ of home-health care. The person was speaking degradingly about the amount of money spent on a person who did little other than sit silently at a bedside.

I was dumfounded.

In a country where the median age is rapidly accelerating, along with a push for alternative scenarios to nursing homes and hospitals, home-care health can offer many advantages. Yet despite the lifeline it represents, in general it remains little-recognized, unappreciated, and hugely misunderstood. Just as my ‘friend’ considered it over-paid baby-sitting, many people have strange ideas about the helpfulness and overall advantages of home-care and caregivers.

Realizing the multidimensional and multidisciplinary nature of superior home-care is key. Beyond the health training that preserves dignity in the home, the intimate attention benefits the patient AND surrounding family. These services ultimately allow HOME to be the setting, which better assists in the overall pain management, daily diets, and movements. Climbing the stairs (under a watchful eye) may not get a gold medal, but the jubilation at seeing a family antique or picture on the second floor gives the day a golden glow.

Should home health care be a microcosm of what our health care system SHOULD be doing? I believe so. And ACCFamily does just that: we are a look at the future: compassionate assistance from the familiarity of home.