Healthcare - Home Health Aide

Home health aides help elderly, convalescent, or disabled persons live in their own homes instead of in a health care facility. Home health aides is a growing occupation, as a result of both growing demand for home services from an aging population and efforts to contain costs by moving patients out of hospitals and nursing care facilities as quickly as possible. Consumer preference for care in the home and improvements in medical technologies for in-home treatment also will contribute to much-faster-than-average employment growth for home health aides.

Most home health aides work with elderly or disabled persons who need more extensive care than family or friends can provide. Some help discharged hospital patients who have relatively short-term needs.

In home health agencies, a registered nurse, physical therapist, or social worker usually assigns specific duties to and supervises home health aides, who keep records of the services they perform and record each patient’s condition and progress. The aides report changes in a patient’s condition to the supervisor or case manager.