Home Health Care Vs. Hospice Care: What Is the Difference?

Many patients eligible for home health care and hospice care are confused about the differences between the two.

While there is some basic resemblance, there are numerous variances, particularly regarding who is eligible for each service, the sort of care delivered, and the service’s purpose.

A quick description of home care and Health Service care is provided below.

How Are Home Health Care & Hospice Care Similar?

Although there are some parallels between hospice and home health care, the two modes to care are tailored to different patients with different requirements and goals. Hospice and home health care, for example, are available wherever the patient calls home.

When curative medical therapies are no longer effective or chosen, hospice offers comfort care to patients with terminal illnesses.

Home health care is curative, aimed at assisting patients in recovering from accidents or disease or improving their functional abilities.

How Are They Different?

They Have Different Purposes

People recovering from illness, accident, or surgery can benefit from home health care. It also assists people in learning how to manage chronic diseases. Hospice care provides pain and symptom management for people with a terminal illness who aren’t supposed to survive more than six months.

Frequency & Span of Care

Home health visits are tailored to the patient’s and caregiver’s specific needs. As the patient’s health improves and their needs diminish, they usually decrease with time.

he patient will be seen on an as-needed basis as long as they meet the qualifying requirements and their doctor finds the care medically essential.

Hospice visits are also tailored to the patient’s and caregiver’s specific needs. They tend to rise with time as the patient’s health deteriorates and their needs grow.

If a doctor certifies that the patient has a low life expectancy, the patient can get visits for six months or longer.

Goals of Care

The fundamental purpose of home health care is to assist the patient in regaining or maintaining their present functional level. Clinic care’s main goal is to improve quality of life while managing pain and other symptoms.

Location of Care

Patients can get home health care in the comfort of their own homes. This could be a private home, assisted living, or group home. Most inpatient settings, such as a hospital or nursing homes, cannot provide it.

Patients can obtain hospice care no matter where they live. A private apartment, a facility, an inpatient hospice center, and brief stays in an inpatient hospital setting are examples of this.

Volunteers and Chaplains

Volunteers and chaplain services are not frequently coordinated by home health. If needed, hospice agencies normally have a priest on staff, and volunteers are regularly trained to assist families. Volunteers can refer to a variety of things.

Some volunteers offer emotional support, run errands, assist with housework, and do other things to help patients and their caregivers in general. Sanitarium organizations frequently collaborate with volunteer programs like comfort dog services.

Bereavement Services:

Regardless of courtesy calls, home health services end when a patient is discharged. On the other hand, hospice care continues even after a patient passes away. Families might receive months of bereavement assistance through hospice services.

End-Of-Life Care Specialization:

Nurses who work in home health care specialize in helping people recover from illness or accidents. On the other hand, hospice nurses are trained to provide palliative care to people who are nearing the end of their lives. It’s a different set of abilities.

Hospice nurses will be more experienced in assisting with end-of-life papers, emotional support for advanced terminal disease patients, nutrition management in end-of-life care, advanced symptom management in the setting of hospice, and other tasks.

Services Provided:

Home health services address intermittent or periodic needs and may include:

• Skilled nursing
• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Speech therapy
• Medical social work
• Wound care
• Medication assistance
• Help with personal care from a home health aide, as needed

Hospice services include:

• Skilled nursing
• Help with personal care from a home health aide
• Medical social work to help with planning, insurance, advance directives, and other concerns
• Bereavement counseling for loved ones
• Spiritual counseling with a chaplain
• Trained volunteers to assist with household tasks, errands, preparing meals, and providing companionship.

As a general rule, mixing the sort of care, you require with some other type of care that is accessible is not suggested. If you have a terminal condition and need hospice care, you don’t want to accept home health care as an alternative.

Home health care focuses on healing, whether from illness or an accident. In contrast, hospice care is more concerned with treating pain and symptoms related to terminal illnesses.

In the case of terminally sick hospice patients, it is doubtful that they would desire personnel to compel them to undergo exercises to regain mobility. Hospice care is designed for people nearing the end of their lives.

It includes medications, a chaplain, grief counseling, and all prescriptions and other help needed to manage pain and symptoms.

Safe Hands HHC delivers the best hospice care and home health care services in Michigan. The compassion and generosity in our team make it feasible for us to sustain outstanding standards. Safe Hands HHC specializes in hospice and home care, earning a reputation as Michigan’s best in-home respite care provider.

Visit Us: https://safehandshhc.com/