Home Health Clients

A call from a home health care nurse has opened a new area for our pets to share their love. This nurse is a pet lover herself and after visiting about the benefits of pet therapy is going to begin asking new and present clients if they would like to have an occasional visit from a pet therapy team. (AAA visit primarly).

This opens a whole new concept for me.
1. For those of us who don't have time to make regular visits to the hospital or the nursing home, these would be short nearby visits. The benefits for the client we are well aware of.
2. Most of the visits would be to shut-ins or folks who are in home recovery programs.
Maybe not as emotionally packed as visiting the hospice patient.
3. Working with the home health care agency it would be possible to limit the visits to those close at hand, and/or other restrictions that the team might have such as not able to visit during the daytime except on weekends, only able to visit on weekends, Must be able to visit when schedule allows, thus must be able to call client or have home health care call and approve a short notice visit.

What do you think. Give me your feedback.

I think this is a nice idea but my concerns are that without a general facility, does this open us up to more liability as there would not be a "staff" person on hand in case something happens? Also, like hospital visits and such, I assume that the people we would visit would want a visit with a pet and would understand that we are there to bring cheer to their days. Would these be people those who do not have pets - i.e - cats, my concern is someone who has a cat opens the door for a whole host of other issues? I like the idea but I for one am a little leery of doing visits outside of facility, I don't anticipate there being problems but I am just trying to think ahead because in a scenario where it is us and our dogs and one other person if there was a problem it is our word against theirs. Also there are certain areas where I would not want to go with my dog, for our safety, will these things be considered? All in all, I like the idea, I am not sure this would be something I would do with Kennedy when we are able as there are a lot of unknowns, I would be more willing if it was someone I already knew or if it was referral through my church or something. Just my thoughts

Yes, you have brought up a lot of the concern areas and you are right.

I think that if this is something a team would like to pursue, the first step would be to work with the Director of the agency, require 1. the visiting nurse has made the referral based on person wanting a visit and understanding the nature of the visit 2. The team's wish to be accompanied. 3. the teams "requirements" or "restrictions". 4. The team would have the right to decline any request (based on the team's schedule, visit location, lack of accompanying personnel, etc).

Good discussion. That is what the forum is for.

As far as the visits to facility clients, in hospitals the nursing staff usually checks with the families/patients before you come on the scene; but no one accompanies you to the rooms. Sometimes this happens on Pedi when they have plenty of staff and few patients, but seldom on the med-surg, telemetery, oncology, or rehab units. The nursing homes staff hardly looks up when you come unless they happen to want to visit with your animal. Once you get established you learn to cover the halls, look into a room and if you get a smile or a brightened eye, ask if the person would like a visit. But in both the hospital and the nursing home/hospice facilities you do have staff around and you know the quality of the area you are visiting.

I think it's a great idea. Home health nurses come into contact with patients that are living at home and are lonely. I would love to take Mae to any of their homes that want a visit. I think it's a great idea.