Home Health Aides: Job Description, Education, Skills and Abilities, Earnings and Outlook
Submitted by: paula
Job Overview Home health aides are health service providers in homes. They provide variety of health and health related services to the homes of their clients. Most of their clients include the elderly and those with long term diseases and irreversible disabilities. Home health aides work for hospitals and health care agencies and are being sourced out to the homes of those in need of personal care even outside the hospital.
Education, Knowledge and Trainings Required
If you wish to establish a career in this industry, take classes in communications, psychology as well as in arts and sciences during your high school years. The minimum requirement to become a home health aide is a possession of a high school diploma.To be able to get the trainings to prepare you for the job, a good way is to volunteer or take part time jobs in hospitals. Training courses are available in care giving schools which can be taken for around three weeks to three months long.
Skills and Abilities
Basic caregiving skills are necessary to accomplish the tasks expected of a home health aide. Good communication skills and interpersonal skills will put their clients at ease, gain their trust as well as promote a good working relationship with them. Teaching and helping skills are a must as they will be assisting the patients as well as the relatives of the patients in dealing with the many routines and care interventions needed to promote wellness and health.
Duties
As a primary care giver at home, home health aides assist their clients in all activities of daily living.
Depending on their level of dependency, they may assist them in bathing, in toileting and in doing range of motion exercises. They may also help in simple household chores such as changing bed linens and doing light laundry and cleaning of their place. At times, they accompany their clients for walks and wheelchair rides as a diversional activity. They may also read to them or talk to them to simply keep them company. In terms of medication taking, they remind and help them take their medicines. As they are not registered nurses and doctors, they can not prescribe any drugs to them nor administer intravenous medications to them.
Earnings and Job Outlook
As there is a growing population of the elderly with partial and full disabilities, the job opportunities for the home health aides are excellent. It is expected to continue to grow faster than the average for the other professions in different industries. The median salary for home health aides is around 8.81 U.S. dollars on an hourly basis which is dependent on the employer, the number of clients as well as the location of employment.
Paula Hiz is a researcher and a human resource specialist who helps newly graduates, job applicants and post graduate professionals be aware of their job opportunities and available trainings for skills and practice upgrading.
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