Many health care services are often provided in the familiar and supportive setting of home—where most patients prefer to be, given the choice. The home care option reduces unnecessary hospital stays, and perhaps most importantly, delivers personalized, one-on-one attention from a dedicated, multidisciplinary healthcare team in the comfort of your own home. As the patient is the sole focus during every visit, home health care clinicians are able to become health educators and advocates—an important part of the support system to help clients through a challenging time. Here is a quick-reference comparison to help you understand the differences and similarities between hospice vs home health care.

The Difference Between Hospice vs Home Health Care

Hospice vs Home Health Care

Two of the most commonly known home health care specialties are home health care and hospice – which are covered by Medicare/Medicaid, and most private insurers. Home health services are short-term medical services ordered by a doctor and provided at home to help adults and seniors recover or rehabilitate from an illness, injury, surgery, hospitalization, a terminal diagnosis, or to help them learn how better to manage a chronic condition such as diabetes or COPD and improve quality of life.

Home Health Care

Essentially, the aim of short-term home health care is to provide treatment for individuals who have been ill or injured. Home health care is an effective way of restoring your strength and allowing you to become as independent as possible.

For people who suffer from chronic illness or disability, long-term home health care is aimed at maintaining their best level of health or capability and teaching them how to cope with their disease or disability in a comfortable and manageable way.

Listed below are a few of the services that home health care provides:

Nursing services

Registered Nurses (RNs) and Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs), both of which are qualified to perform the following duties under the orders of your physician, are able to perform such tasks as wound care, medication management, and glucose monitoring.

Physical therapy

To provide a physician-prescribed treatment in an effort to assist, aid in the development, and restore the function of muscles and joints.

Occupational therapy

Provide patients with the assistance that will enable them to regain their ability to take care of themselves and carry on with their daily activities.

Speech therapy

To be able to assist patients with impaired communication skills by either helping them to regain those skills or to help them learn ways of expressing their needs and feelings with alternative methods.

Social services

Social workers have been trained to help patients and their families cope with the effects of illness or disability on their personal and emotional well-being. The social worker will also help you find professional assistance programs, such as home meal delivery or support groups, as well as financial resources.

Home health aide

Certified home health aides are available to assist with patients’ personal care and hygiene needs and to provide nursing care under direct supervision by an RN if the individual requires it.

Dietary Services

Registered dietitians are capable of providing nutrition counseling, instruction on nutritional principles, and dietary plans for patients, and educating them on the importance of eating foods that are healthy.

Hospice Care

Hospice care services provide clinical, social, emotional, and spiritual care and support for a patient and their immediate family members near the end of life. Generally, physicians and nurses receive additional education and training in order to be able to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual support to patients and their families.

Hospice is designed to reduce pain and symptoms associated with terminal illnesses so that patients can remain comfortable during their final days.

Palliative Care

As part of hospice, the care team provides palliative care—designed to keep the patient as comfortable as possible with a variety of interventions to reduce and manage pain and other symptoms.

Respite Care

They also provide respite care, which means patient care that allows family caregivers the opportunity to rest, rejuvenate, and leave the house to do other things, either on a planned or emergency basis.

Bereavement

Hospice also includes bereavement (grieving) care for family members following the loss of a loved one. To qualify, a patient must decide (in collaboration with their doctor and family) to discontinue curative treatment for their terminal illness, and the doctor must certify a life expectancy of six months or less. When curative treatment ends, hospice care steps in.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that hospice care is really a team effort that includes doctors, nurses, therapists, counselors, health aides, volunteers, etc. Each team member plays an important role in the care and comfort given to the patients and their families.

Hospice Care Services

Listed below are a few of the services that hospice care provides:

  • Nursing services: As part of the hospice program, a case manager nurse is assigned to each patient, who usually visits for one to three days per week. There is also an on-call nurse available 24 hours a day to help patients and caregivers if the need arises.
  • Physician participation: The hospice medical directors are in constant coordination with their patients’ regular physicians in order to provide the best possible care.
  • Medical social services: Social workers assist patients with their psychological and/or social care needs.
  • Counseling services: Hospice patients and/or their relatives may require nutritional assistance, spiritual and pastoral support, as well as bereavement counseling after the patient has passed.
  • Home-health aide: They usually meet with patients two or three times per week to assist them with getting dressed, bathing, grooming, etc.
  • Medication: Hospice typically covers all prescriptions related to the hospice diagnosis and those intended to control or alleviate pain and symptoms.
  • Medical equipment: Hospice provides the equipment necessary to provide a safe, comfortable, caring environment in the comfort of the patient’s home. These supplies might include, for example, a hospital bed, a wheelchair, and oxygen, as well as adult diapers, bandages, and latex gloves.
  • Respite care: This temporary, short-term assistance can help alleviate or avoid caregiver burnout and stress.
  • Therapists: If appropriate, hospice might provide a physical, occupational, and/or speech-language therapist.
  • Additional assistance: Some individual hospice agencies might also provide additional services through volunteer and/or charity programs.

What Type of Care is Best? Hospice vs Home Health Care

As a general rule, it is best to avoid mixing up the type of care you need with another kind of care that is available. For example, if you suffer from a terminal illness and require hospice care, you don’t want to receive home health care as a substitute. The focus of home health care is precisely on recovery, whether it is from an illness or an accident. On the other hand, hospice care focuses more on the treatment of pain and symptoms that come with terminal illnesses.

PROMEDCARE provides In-Home Care and can work with you or your loved one to establish a care plan that will allow you to stay in-home.

In-Home Care

Where hospice focuses on end-of-life support and home health care is centered on helping people heal. In-Home Care provides care for individuals to be independent and as self-sufficient as possible in a safe environment.

In-Home Caregivers provide one-on-one personal care, healthy meal guidance/preparation, transferring/mobility assistance, medication reminders, personal hygiene assistance, housekeeping, as well as dementia/respite care.

Home care can be short-term until the patient feels they no longer need help, or it can be long-term, especially in regard to chronic conditions. It may also extend into hospice care in the future.

In-Home Care Services

Home care services usually include but are not limited to:

  • Care coordination and communication
  • Meal planning & preparation
  • Education about self-care
  • Safety in the home
  • Errand transportation
  • Grocery shopping
  • Morning/evening check-ins
  • Housekeeping
  • Laundry & dishwashing
  • Medication reminders
  • Bathing
  • Grooming/dressing
  • Hygiene assistance
  • Transfer/positioning
  • Ambulation & Mobility
  • Dementia & respite care

Promedcare

Our goal is to keep you or your loved one healthy, happy, and safe at home. The Promedcare team of management and caregivers understands the importance of providing care within the comfort of one’s own home. Families choose Promedcare for different reasons.

For some, it’s to provide extensive ongoing care for an aging senior. For others, we offer a much-needed break or, respite care – such as a night out with a spouse, vacation, or simply a few hours of quiet time at home – for family members who provide regular care. We offer a wide range of care services customized for each individual client.

Promedcare services include Personal Care Services, Companion Care Services, Dementia / Alzheimer’s Care Services, and Respiratory Solutions.

Contact us today to see how Prodmedcare can help you!