Objectives
- Conduct
functional assessments.
- Predict
patient/client independence in the home by using outcome measurements
and addressing functional ability.
- Identify
barriers and develop interventions to address them.
- Establish
a patient/client care plan based on appropriate patient/client
learning needs.
- Explain
the home care rehabilitative/restorative process.
- Identify
current infection control practices in home care and hospice.
- Discuss
the effectiveness of current practices.
- Defend infection
control practices that vary from traditional practice.
- Recognize
specific changes related to aging.
- Identify
teaching adaptations needed by elderly patients.
Introduction
Respiratory care practitioners (RCPs) have been providing respiratory
care services in the home setting for decades, but until recently
"respiratory home care" has been viewed as a site of care rather
than as a specialty area of practice. This all changed with the
formation of the Home Care Specialty Section within the American
Association for Respiratory Care in 1994. Prior to this momentous
step, home care was largely looked on as a place for clinicians
who were "burned out" from working in the more traditional acute
care setting. The value of the home care RCP in the overall management
of patients with chronic pulmonary disease went virtually unnoticed.
Respiratory therapy educational programs were not graduating students
whose career goals included home care; rather, studentsı goals following
graduation were to go into either acute or neonatal critical care,
management, or education. One might "retire" to home care if one
did not leave the profession altogether.
How things have
changed! Home care is now widely recognized as the fastest growing
segment of the nationıs healthcare delivery system. Further, with
the notion of transitional care now firmly embedded as an integral
part of healthcare restructuring, home care is viewed by many as
the most appropriate manner to effectively manage most chronic medical
conditions. For patients afflicted with chronic pulmonary diseases,
their ability to receive optimum home care services is directly
dependent on the availability of a competent, highly trained, and
committed home care RCP. Time and experience have proved that there
is no acceptable substitute. Indeed, then, the role (and value)
of the home care RCP has never been greater, and the opportunities
for professional and personal growth remain boundless.
The main focus
of this module is home respiratory care: the elements of a successful
home visit, patient assessment, infection control, documentation
and patient teaching.
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