The Bureau of Labor states that the home health care industry is projected to grow 36 percent by 2028. This, according to the BLS, is a much faster growth rate than most industries.
Becoming a home health aide is a great way to give back to your community. It is an ideal career path for anyone who enjoys helping others and pays attention to details!
In order to become a home health aide, you will need to complete training courses and receive an HHA certificate.
Read on to learn more about the HHA certification process and how you can complete it in 2020.
What Do Home Health Aides Do?
Home health aides are an integral part of home healthcare. They work with patients who need medical assistance, often on a regular basis, but wish to remain at home.
Home health aides work independently, although they are often part of a larger agency. They also work under other medical professionals, most often working closely with a registered nurse.
A home health aide is responsible for a variety of basic medical services. These include administering medication and applying bandages. They also check their patients’ vital signs such as their pulse, temperature, and respiration rates.
A home health aide may also go above and beyond medical treatment. Many develop personal relationships with their patient, vastly improving their possible feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Home health aides also play a role in educating the patient on proper nutrition.
The Difference Between a Home Health Aide and a Personal Care Assistant
Personal care assistants also tend to patients who have illnesses or disabilities and live at home. However, personal care assistants do not go through the same level of training and have a more limited set of responsibilities.
Personal care assistants focus on the day-to-day tasks that their patients may struggle with. For example, they may help with transportation, grooming, or cooking meals. In other words, their job is to ease the burden their patients carry throughout the day but they cannot assist their patients medically.
What is an HHA Certificate?
An HHA certificate is the document certifying that you have completed your full HHA training. Without it, you may be able to find work in the home healthcare industry but not as a home health aide, specifically. In other words, an HHA certificate will open up more job opportunities and provide you with the credentials to ask for a higher salary!
How to Get an HHA Certificate
There are a few steps that you must complete in order to receive your HHA certificate in 2020. We’ll walk you through them!
Complete Your CNA Training
A certified nursing assistant performs tasks similar to those of a home health aide but they do so in a traditional medical setting. Receiving CNA training strengthens your background in medical terminology and basic procedures, preparing you for your role as a home health aide.
Most people complete their CNA training prior to receiving their HHA certificate. However, it is possible to complete them both simultaneously. You may be able to get an HHA certificate without CNA training but it will look better to future employers if you have both.
Although CNA training may appear, on the surface, to be similar to HHA training, you cannot become a home health aide without your HHA certificate. While CNA training prepares you for hospital or hospice work, HHA training prepares you for the specific situations that arise when taking care of someone who is ill or aging at home.
Enroll in HHA Training
Enroll in an HHA course in your area. Most states have state health department-funded courses that are free to the students. You can also find HHA training courses online, although in-person classes may provide a more hands-on experience.
You may be wondering what to expect in an HHA course. We’re here to answer that question!
In an HHA training course, you will learn more about the role of a home health aide and the agency they work for in the patient’s care. You will also learn how to assess the medical and social needs of each patient you work with. This part of the course will cover how you should talk to the patient as well as communicate the patient’s status to your agency.
In addition to learning about proper medical care, you will learn about how to provide patients with personal care. This includes segments on nutrition, covering things like dietary restrictions and personalized nutritional planning.
You will also learn how to socialize properly with your patients and cover the kinds of day-to-day tasks they may ask you to assist them with. For example, you may be expected to help patients with housekeeping and personal hygiene in addition to basic medical care.
Finally, HHA training will cover the special care required by elderly and aging patients. In addition, you will learn how to react in situations involving deteriorating health and death. HHA training is designed to prepare you for every situation you may encounter while working with a variety of patients.
HHA training takes approximately 40 hours.
Choose a Career Path That Makes a Difference
Are you an empathetic person? Do you seek fulfillment in lifting the burden off of those who are ill, disabled, or aging? Get your HHA certificate and become a home health aide!
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