For people recovering from COVID-19, home care can be both essential and elaborate, involving a health care professional who provides additional oxygen, monitors vital signs, administers medication and helps with daily tasks such as eating, bathing and getting in and out of bed. Home care professionals and nurses said the coronavirus pandemic shows how crucial the industry is. It provides life-saving services to people who are vulnerable while keeping them safe in their own homes.
Olga Jarrín, a registered nurse and assistant professor in nursing science at Rutgers University, said there is often a lack of public awareness about what home care is and who can benefit from it. “It can be so many different things,” she said. There are “three big buckets” of home care, Jarrín said: the short-term, immediate care a person may receive after they leave a hospital and need additional treatment; monitoring and management of a chronic illness over time; and palliative care. To read the full story.