Post-hospital care services ensure your dad’s medical needs are tended to in his home. Why would you use this service? It’s one of the smartest ways to prevent rehospitalization or to avoid having to go to a nursing home to start the recovery process.
Here’s a guide to post-hospital care to help your family understand what services are offered.
What Nursing Care Services Are Available When Your Dad Is Discharged?
With post-hospital care, your dad has nurses stopping by his home to help with medically-indicated tasks. Many of these are things a family caregiver cannot handle due to the necessary training. What kinds of tasks do nurses handle?
IVs & Injections:
Nurses can set up an IV for medications or infusions of fluids or vitamins and minerals. If your dad has anemia and needs iron-rich plasma infusions, he could have them administered at home if he’s housebound. If he’s dehydrated and his doctors want to keep him out of a germ-filled waiting room, fluids can be administered at his home by a skilled nurse.
If your dad needs injections of insulin while he heals from surgery, his nurse can handle them. You can also gain the education that you need to take over his diabetes care. He won’t have to struggle to get into a car, into a medical clinic, and back home again for injections and blood tests. Instead, his nurse will handle it and record his sugar levels with the doctor.
Medication Administration:
Your dad has several medications he’s taking. Some must be taken on an empty stomach, and others are taken with a meal. He has to take one pill with a glass of milk, and the others are water-only. All of this can be incredibly confusing and hard to remember.
Nurses can help your dad with medication administration. When he takes something new, he has a nurse there in case he has any adverse reactions. So, there’s a safety aspect of having a home health care nurse with him and he’s less likely to take too much of a medication or miss a dose and impact his health.
Therapy Sessions:
How mobile is your dad? If he had a stroke and requires a wheelchair, he can have speech, physical, and occupational therapy sessions in his home. Therapists come to his home to help him relearn skills that were impacted by the stroke.
Wound & Incision Care:
If your dad has wounds or incisions that were stitched and bandaged, he’ll have instructions to follow to prevent infection and promote healing. He may have pressure bandages in place, and those cannot be removed for a day or two. After that, he needs to have the wound gently cleaned and rebandaged with clean gauze and a covering.
Nurses can clean and dress wounds and incisions. They have the training to check for signs of infection and make sure stitches haven’t torn or that an incision is bleeding or oozing more than it should.
What Do You Need to Do to Schedule Post-Hospital Care?
What do you need to do to make the arrangements for your dad? Start by asking his medical team what his care needs will be after leaving the hospital. Once you have an idea of what he needs and what you can and cannot do, call our post-hospital care service to schedule the services he needs.
If you or a family member need to hire Post-Hospital Care Services in Stonybrook NY or the surrounding areas, contact the caring professionals at Star Multi Care Services today at (631)956-8835. We are the Right Choice for Home Health Care Services!
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