Home Health Care

Most people prefer home health care to hospital care because of the advantages of the previous to the latter. Many clinics and hospitals are understaffed; resulting in poor medical attention towards patients. This leads to possible worsening of the patient's health. Fortunately, home health care can be done to prevent this from happening.

Home health care helps a person get well in the comforts and security of his own place. Family members can act as care givers or a professional health practitioner such as a nurse or a caregiver may be hired. Personalized treatments such as wound dressings, blood tests, and insulin injections for diabetics may be readily available through home health care. Home health care also costs less compared to hospital care. A person does not need to pay an expensive hospital room. He will not have to deal with hospital food either. In the convenience of his own place, a person has the advantage of being with his loved ones
everyday while on medication.

Family members are confident and secured of their loved one's safety at home. Friends and relatives may also visit anytime they want without having to worry about visiting hours. A person receiving home health care is also certain to be well fed and well taken care of. He can relax and receive treatment at the same time. For example, a diabetic person can watch his favorite television show while being injected with insulin. He might not be allowed to do this in a hospital where he would certainly become bored and unproductive. And in addition, a person suffering from a long illness is able to rest at home; with his family physician acting as the primary doctor.

However, in spite of the numerous advantages a home health care offers, certain disadvantages of this arrangement must be taken into consideration. For instance, home health care may lack in medical equipments and facilities needed by the patient. Emergency situations may also be difficult to handle at home. And if there are many people or children in the household, the person receiving treatment might have a very little sense of privacy.

There could also come a time when family members taking care of their sick loved one become fatigued and burned out. Some family members, especially children, might also be afraid to have a dying person in the house. In these kinds of cases, hospital care is necessary. Specialized medical care and facilities are immediately available in hospitals.

Still, even if such disadvantages exist, home health care is proven to be effective in helping patients recover faster. People prefer to be medically treated in their own homes because the happiness and satisfaction they feel at home can not be compared to what they feel in a hospital.