10 Reasons To Consider In-Home Care

What Is In-Home Care?

In-home care is a service where trained carers come to someone’s home to help them with a range of tasks, depending on their needs.

In-home care includes personal care like showering and dressing and nursing care like managing wounds and giving medication. It also includes help with household tasks like cleaning, shopping and cooking.

What’s Different About Focused Health Care’s In-Home Care?

We’re run by Registered Nurses. That makes a big difference in normal circumstances but it’s tremendously important right now.

Registered nurses are highly trained in all aspects of patient care. That includes infection control. We’ve always understood the importance of washing our hands!

Our Registered Nurses provide nursing care to in-home care clients. They also train our other carers who provide help with personal care or household tasks. Every member of Focused Health Care’s team is (and always has been) well-trained in ways of minimising risk while providing companionship and compassionate care.

10 Reasons To Consider In-Home Care

In-home care has extra benefits during the pandemic but it’s a wonderful option at any time.

1. It helps the vulnerable: The coronavirus pandemic is more of a threat to people whose age or health status increases their vulnerability. Because of their frailty or poor health, these people still need care but their usual support systems may be disrupted. In-home care fills the gap.
2. It helps avoid family visits during a time of social distancing: If you’re in an essential service role that means you encounter a lot of (potentially infected) people each day, it’s better that you don’t visit vulnerable relatives. And if you have kids, who tend to be unwitting carriers of the disease, it’s also better that you don’t visit vulnerable relatives. But someone does need to care for them when you can’t. At Focused Health Care, we’ve always tried to match clients with the same 2-3 carers so that they can build up a relationship. That’s even more useful now in maintaining continuity of care and reducing the risk of virus transmission. As healthcare workers, we’re committed to strict infection control measures to help keep our clients safe. Because this is part of our workplace training and culture, we’re more likely to consistently follow these practices than you might be.
3. It can reduce stress during this highly stressful time: Everyone is feeling the stress of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s changed our lifestyle immeasurably, disrupting our jobs, our schools, our healthcare system and our social connections. Depending on your job, you may be working extra hours to cope with the pandemic pressure or you may be dealing with job insecurity, remote working and (attempted!) homeschooling. You simply can’t care for elderly relatives in the same way you could a few months ago. Your world has changed. And your stress levels will probably improve once you admit that and get help such as in-home care.
4. It’s an essential service: That means we can still go out and look after Nanna and Pop, even when you’re under tighter and tighter restrictions on your movements. Arranging in-home care now is a wise idea.
5. It helps people stay well: No-one likes being in hospital at the best of times but, right now, we all need to do everything possible to reduce demand on our hospitals so they can treat pandemic patients. And it’s probably better for vulnerable people to be at home rather than in a clinical setting where the risk of catching the virus may be higher. In-home care may help reduce the need for hospital admissions by identifying potential health problems more quickly and providing nursing care at home, where people prefer to be. Our Registered Nurses help patients with many ongoing health issues to do well at home, helping to manage chronic conditions, ensure medication is taken properly, manage wounds to encourage healing and prevent infection, and manage indwelling catheters, stomas or continence difficulties.
6. It supports people who should (perhaps) be in hospital right now: We’re in highly unusual times when hospitals are diverting all their resources towards combatting the pandemic. That means elective surgeries are cancelled and as many patients as possible are being discharged.
7. It helps prevent falls: Again, this is not the time for Grannie to break her hip. In-home care can help reduce the risk of falls because our carers know how to identify and address falls risk. That might include removing trip hazards, recommending walking frames or alarms, giving medicines on time and helping people remain well-hydrated to prevent dizziness.
8. It’s an aged care service: Moving into residential aged care may not seem such a good idea right now with visitors banned. Making a big change in the midst of widespread fear and social distancing may not be a good idea, and may be hard to pull off anyway given the restrictions on house sales. In-home care is a recognised aged care service that can be paid for using MyAgedCare funds. But it’s provided in a safe, familiar, comforting environment – home.
9. It’s an NDIS service: In-home care is an important disability support service that enables people to continue living in their own home by providing help with personal care and household tasks. In-home care can be included in and funded through a person’s NDIS Plan.
10. It takes a village: You’ve probably heard that it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to care for older people and people with disabilities. In-home care is part of that village.