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Nurse Assistants can work at hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and nursing homes, but there are many who have a calling for at-home healthcare. There are more than 4.5 million patients in need of home healthcare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Home healthcare allows patients in need of long-term medical care to have a greater quality of life at home rather than in a hospital setting.
Patients with high rates of home healthcare are generally in poor health, have low incomes, and are 85 years of age or older, according to this report posted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Common diagnoses among home healthcare patients include circulatory disease (31% of patients), heart disease (16%), injury and poisoning (15.9%), musculoskeletal and connective tissue disease (14.1%), and respiratory disease (11.6%).
But not just anyone can suit up in scrubs. You need relevant experience, a diverse skill-set, and the right qualifications to be hired. As a home healthcare CNA, your job is very significant for the life and medical care of your patient. You need to carry a bag of a good personality, prior experience, and relevant education to tick all the expectations of your future employer.
Our focus here is on the CNA personality traits that home health agencies look for when hiring Nurse Aides and Caregivers. Let’s look into the most important CNA qualities for at-home caregiving.
Empathy
In additional to medical care, patients who are homebound are often in great need of compassion, conversation, and friendship. One can’t sustain the role of a caregiver unless empathy is at the forefront of care. The primary focus of Nurse Assistants in home healthcare is to look after the daily needs of their patients. Caring would be incomplete if performed without the essential ingredient of empathy. One needs to feel for others. Understanding the pain, feelings, and thought-process is critical in fulfilling a caregiver job up to perfection. If you’re interested in stepping into the industry, you should be polite, compassionate, and humble towards your career. The approach is simple; be empathetic for your patient with any physical or psychological disease.
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Hardworking Spirit
The work of Caregivers asks for a lot of sweating, tiring, and exhausting hard work. Both your mind and body should switch to the active mode as you start working. Lots of physical labor and emotional control is expected from a Nurse Assistant. Shifting from the bed to wheelchair, helping in dressing, bathing, cleaning, and exercising asks you to have a hardworking spirit in you, else you may not be a successful player in the healthcare industry.
Professionalism
You may think of professionalism as no brainer. It is quite apparent to remain professional no matter what nature and status of the job. Then, why stress on the quality in this particular zone of caregiving? The reason is infinitely diversified challenges. You may come across people of differing ages, challenges, weaknesses, and issues seeking your help. The health issues could be depression, dementia, disabled, loneliness, and many more. Some may not cooperate in receiving. Others may resist or express irritation while you are serving with all your heart. A professional CNA is calm, composed, concerned, and charismatic to aid the person in need. Your attire, body language, and the way you respond are carefully observed for a home healthcare job.
Meticulous
In addition to helping people with daily-life activities, CNAs are also responsible for monitoring health status regularly. The objective of the regular checking is to evaluate the health progress of residents. Meticulousness comes into play when observing overall health. A Nurse Assistant should be focused on even the minutest of details to ensure the person is doing well and doesn’t need anything else. Take medication as an example. The majority of elderly home healthcare patients routinely take more than 5 prescription drugs, but nearly one-third of these patients have potential medication errors, according to the NCBI report. Nurse Assistants must be exact when issuing medication and be aware of all prescriptions the patients has. Prevention is key.
Great Communication Skills
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Again, yes, you’re right; excellent communication skills contribute to success in every field one can think of. But also, as a CNA, you could be hired by a home healthcare agency for senior care or by pediatric home health agencies to look after a child. Your communication should be clear and assertive to help talk with your patient, family members, doctors, and agency as well. The better you express and listen to the people you meet, the higher your chances of satisfying them to the core.
Emotional Stability
A nurse goes through several stages of emotional challenges during the job; the worry of the decreasing health of a resident or the frustration with a difficult patient. But CNAs can also experience the overwhelming happiness of contributing to the overall well-being of a resident and an improved quality of life. These range of emotions are to be managed with maturity. Emotional stability is a crucial factor to adopt if you are passionate about becoming a Home Healthcare CNA.