Home Health Aide Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a home health aide. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a home health aide.
Who is a Home Health Aide?
Home Health Aides are members of the health team who assist in the provision of healthcare services for disabled people, elderly people, or aged people at home. Home Health Aide does not work independently but is under the direct supervision and specific delegation of licensed and professional health care. Home Health Aides are patient and caring people that show love to recovering patients as if they are family. The love and care they show to patients help them to recover quickly and bring rapid healing to their body system. They are primarily saddled with the responsibility of taking care of patients who are suffering from extreme medical conditions like disabilities or diseases. In addition, they also take care of over-aged people who need continuous attention at home.
As a Home Health Aide Personnel, the job is beyond helping patients to heal quickly and loving them as family, but assisting them as they go through life. It also entails building trust with the patients in their weakest moments. Home health aides serve as representatives of doctors and nurses and they are usually the first to notice a change in a patient’s condition.
The work can demand a lot of physical energy and many hours spend on standing, walking, and moving patients, especially those in wheelchairs. Home health aides need to take precautions because they are at risk of diseases and must take deliberate steps to avoid these hazards. Home health aides must be tactful, honest, and discrete and act professionally because they work in a private home. Home health aides usually have access to automobiles or public transport to travel to the patient’s home.
Home Health Aide Job Description
Below are the home health aide job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a job description for your employee. The employer can use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
The following are the duties of a Home health aide:
- Assist with daily activities like bathing, dressing washing, and cooking.
- Provide companionship with the patient and build friendships with the patient.
- Provide home health aides to elderly, disabled people, and covalence living in their own homes instead of a hospital
- Provide extensive health care services friends and family cannot offer.
- Work relatively with discharge hospital patients who have short-term needs
- Check patients’ health conditions such as pulse, temperature, and respiration to ascertain if there is a change
- Assist patients with simple exercises
- Help patients get out of bed, bathe, dress and groom
- Give massages and provide skin care.
- Assist with medical equipment such as ventilators
- Help with daily living activities such as light housework: such as preparation of meals, shopping for groceries, and using telephones.
- Entertain patients by talking, reading novels, and playing games or cards.
- Respond to emergencies because of the basic safety techniques they possess.
- Perform unpleasant tasks like collecting urine or stool specimens, emptying bedpans, or changing soiled bed linens.
- Provide transportation to doctor’s appointment
- Help patients whenever they want to use the toilet
- Provide medical reminders to patients
- Provide emotional support to depressed patients especially the seniors
Qualifications
- A High school diploma
- Must be at least 18 years
- Have a good personal hygiene
- Must be trained on the job by registered doctors and nurses or more experienced aides
- An aide must have a medical report that specifies that he/she cannot cause harm to self or patients
- No criminal record
- An aide must pass through classroom and clinical studies approved by the State Department of Health Services on basic nutrition, meal cleaning, cooking, and home task
- Must abide by written and spoken instructions
- Ability to work under pressure and with limited supervision
- Must provide references
Essential Skills
Dealing with patients requires a lot of amazing skills because of their delicate nature. Depression is common among senior patients and dealing with them tactfully can alleviate these symptoms. Providing critical care can go a long way to ease every pain. home health aides should always smile and laugh with patients to bring merry to their souls. Home health aide skills include hard skills such as medical knowledge, treatment strategies, and patient care techniques. They also need soft skills that can boast their relationship with patients and provide exceptional care.
The following are the necessary skills needed by a home health aide:
Communication Skills
Communication is a core skill because home health aides communicate with patients, friends, and families of the patient on the condition of the patient, discussing treatments, and building companionship. In addition, you need to ask questions to assess your patient’s body language and their overall wellbeing.
Interpersonal Skills
As a home health aide attendant, one of the requisite skills you need is compassion, empathy, and patience due to the nature of the job. Patient care is highly sacrificial and can be very demanding; you need to understand the patient’s perspective and build a strong bond with them. Show compassion at all times and help patients solve their problems. You need to be highly patient to tolerate a patient’s mistakes or shortcomings.
Time Management
As a home health aide, it is your responsibility to maintain the patient’s appointment schedule and keep information organized. You must help a patient manage their time and make sure you also keep your schedule on track. You must do your best to be flexible, approachable, and compassionate with patients.
Organizational Skills
Home health aides must be very organized in their work and help patients keep medical record files. In addition, they also help patients to administer drugs and treatment. As a home health aide, you must possess exceptional organizational skills to be efficient in all these processes.
Adaptability
This is a requisite skill because patients are diverse and sudden changes may occur in the course of your duty. You must be open-minded to tolerate friends, families, and patients’ sudden changes in behavior.
Technical skills and Computer Skills
A home health aide must be familiar with medical technical gadgets because patients may rely on him or her to use some medical equipment ventilators, blood pressure monitors, and oxygen machines. In addition, you need to have computer knowledge on creating spreadsheets and documents and using other computer applications. Additionally, knowledge of mathematics and statistics will be highly beneficial in measuring medication dosage, recording vital statistics.
Medical Knowledge
This is also a core skill; you need to master the terminologies in the medical profession and build on your medical skills. As you enter the profession, you need to use the opportunity to build your knowledge on medical applications and patient care. Several medical concepts are very vital like checking of patient’s temperature, administering first aid, attending doctor’s appointments, and building your knowledge of pharmaceutical terminology.
Physical Stamina
Caring for patients in their homes requires stamina. Home health aides offer specialized care to patients and help patients run domestic errands. They help patients to stand, sit, walk and do home chores like meal preparation, washing, and shopping at the grocery store. You need a great deal of stamina to perform all these kinds of tasks.
Commitment and Dedication
This is also very essential; you need to be committed to taking care of patients to be an exceptional home health aide.
How to Become a Home Health Aide
If you are considering a career as a home health aide; you need to follow the following steps to achieve your goal:
- Get a post-high school Training
After high school, if you want to be a home health aide; you will need to undergo training on the job under the supervision of a registered nurse or an experienced home health aide. The training should be based on housekeeping, food preparation for clients on special diets, sanitation, safety, and emergency response. In addition, you may also need training on signs, nutrition, and infection control
- Obtain State Certification
Some states require 1 year of supervised training before you can care for patients; in such a scenario obtain a state certification to be specialized in the field. Some states may also require 75 hours of competency evaluation. Get a state certification so that you can work for agencies that accept Medicare.
- Obtain a Professional Certification
Professional certification is not compulsory but it will prove that you are competent enough in a home setting. The National Association for Home Care and Hospice is a platform you can use to acquire a professional certification. To be eligible you must complete 75 hours of training and demonstrate competency in 17 skills areas and pass an exam.
- Apply for the Job
Draft your resume and apply for the job; your prospects should be elderly people who will take the option of home care. Hospice and agencies are most likely to be your employers. In the statistics released by the United States of America Bureau of Labour Statistics; about 831,800 people held positions like home health aides in 2018. From 2018-2028 employment of home health aides is projected to reach nearly 1.1 million.
- Advance Your Career
You can still further your education and still be under training. You can enroll in nursing school and become a licensed practical nurse. With a two-year associate degree in nursing, you can become a registered nurse.
Alternatively, you can boost your experience by moving from house duties to personal care duties to gain experience. In addition, you can set up your agency unaffiliated to any agency and provide care to your clients. Attend professional workshops that can educate you on how to administer treatment and care to patients.
- Have a Mentor
Learn from a renowned professional who has been working in the field for a while now. Schedule an appointment with a mentor and enroll for it to learn additional patient care, time management techniques, and communication. By adopting this approach; you get to ask more questions and acquire insight to advance your career.
Where to Work as a Home Health Aide
- Home Health Aides work in Homes where Patients Live:
Home Health Aide can work for weeks or months in patients’ homes; where patients’ families may live and care for the patients. Certified Home Health Aides usually visit 5-6 patients per day and provide personal care.
- Hospital Setting by providing care for patients who are dying:
Home Health aides can also work in the hospital to provide care for patients who are at the point of death. They work closely with registered nurses and doctors to check if there is a change in the patient’s symptoms.
- Home Health Aides can also work alone with supervision. They may work full-time or part-time or on-call. This solely depends on the need of the patients.
Home Health Aide Salary
- In the United States, the median hourly pay for home health aides is $9.34 in 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $7.99 and $10.90 per hour; the lowest 10 percent earned more than $13.00 per hour. Home health aides can be employed under Home health care can make $9.14 per hour while aides working for a community care facility can earn up to $8.867 per hour. Home Health Aide’s pay can increase if they acquire more experience on the job. They are usually paid based on the time they work in the patient’s home and not for travel times between jobs. Many home health aides are called on an hourly basis and do not receive any stipends. There is a poor turn up on the job assignment. Lack of additional or former education will limit the career growth of a home health aide.
- In Canada. The average pay for a home health aide is $34,225 a year and $16 per hour in Canada. The average salary scale of a home health aide ranges from $28,537 to $40.459. the requisite qualification for a home health aide in Canada is a High School Degree.
- In South Africa, the average salary of a home health aide is R115, 900 or is an equivalent hourly rate of R56 in cape town. In addition, they can also earn an average bonus of R939. An entry-level home health aide(1-3 years’ experience) earns an average salary of R90,618. A senior-level home health aide (8+ experience) earns an average salary of R138, 187.
