It’s one nurse and one patient’ for those working outside medical facilities

As medical technology advances, equipment that once was limited to hospitals now is found in the homes of many patients. As more people choose to recuperate at home, hospitals and other medical staffing agencies are seeing an increase in demand for home-duty nurses.

“There’s not an expectation this area will be going down anytime soon,” said Bruce Mowry, owner of Pulse Medical Concierge, a private-duty nursing service. “With the aging population rising, the expectation is the need will grow.”

When patients decide to recuperate in a private residence with the approval of the hospital or doctor a registered nurse or licensed vocational nurse will be assigned to that patient. In cases requiring constant care, a team of nurses will be assigned.

Mowry said home-duty nurses have to fulfill duties normally required of many nurses, such as record keeping, monitoring vital signs, and communicating with family members and the agency or hospital that hired them.

“They are out there working in the field without the benefits of a facility, so they have a lot of responsibility,” he said. “… They are the eyes and ears of the doctor, and they have to be aware of any medical complications and the treatments the patients are receiving.”

Nurses with experience general medical or intensive care are prime candidates for this kind of work, which generally pays about the same as nursing in the hospital.

Home-duty nurses need to be more flexible than their facility counterparts.

“You have to have good organization skills,” Mowry said. “Like most health-care services that bill with Medicare and Medicaid, we have a lot of regulatory issues requiring documentation, so there is a lot of paperwork. You also have to be willing to drive anywhere in Houston in good weather or bad.”
Julie Radley, director of operations for Memorial Hermann Home Health, said home-duty nurses have benefits nurses in regular hospitals don’t have.

“They have more flexibility in the schedule,” she said. “If you’re driving from the patient’s home, and you have a gap between appointments, you can easily run to the bank or have lunch with your daughter.”

The nurses who enjoy this work the most do so because of the interaction with their patients. “Our nurses like it because they are able to become close to the family, and they get to know their patients, whereas if the patients are in the hospital for a shorter period of time, they don’t.” Mowry said. This is true primary care; if you look at the essence of nursing, that’s it: it’s one nurse and one patient.”

Molnar, Josef. “It’s one nurse and one patient for those working outside medical facilites.” Houston Chronicle [Houston] 20 06 2010, Yahoo! Hot Jobs n. pag. Print.