Is a career in home healthcare right for you? The independence, one-on-one patient contact and flexibility appeal to many healthcare job seekers, but home health work isn’t for everyone. If you’re considering a job in home care, ask yourself the following questions — courtesy home health veterans — to determine whether you’d be happy and successful in the field.

Responsibility quotient

A patient’s life often depends on home care workers, whether they’re home health aides, nurses, social workers or rehab therapists. “You just never know what you’re walking into,” says a veteran. “You could go in thinking a person is fine, and they’re in respiratory distress.”

Clinical skill

When an emergency — such as respiratory distress — does arise, a home care worker isn’t surrounded by a team of healthcare professionals. So, many home care professionals, especially nurses, master basic clinical skills by working in an inpatient healthcare facility before moving into home care. “In home care, there is really a huge range of skills you utilise on a daily basis,” says a battle-scarred expert. “You need to polish your clinical skills before going into home health.”

Independent streak

Love it or loathe it, autonomy is the name of the game in home care. Although home health providers stay in touch via telephone and pagers, they spend many days without seeing co-workers or bosses face-to-face. Some home care workers can’t take the isolation and leave the field. “If you need a lot of supervision, you won’t do so well in home care,” says an occupational therapist.

Proactive thinking

When Stokes, a home health provider, calls a physician about a patient’s condition, he offers the doctor specific suggestions about possible courses of actions. “Doctors don’t want to hear, ‘Your patient’s wound is worse. What should we do’?” he says. “Doctors want to hear, ‘your patient’s wound looks like this, and here’s my recommendation’. The doctors want to be able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to my suggestion rather than making the patient come in.”

On the move

Home care workers make multiple house calls a day regardless of the weather, so having a reliable car or access to reliable public transportation is essential.

Respect their turf

Strong social skills and a high level of sensitivity are required to work in patients’ homes. “You have to take into consideration that they have the home-court advantage, and you have to be respectful of that,” says an expert. Dealing with patients’ family members can also be touchy. If there’s a caregiver involved, you have to include them in the treatment plan and goals.

“You’re working in the homes of patients of different ethnicities and cultures, and you have to be adaptable and personable with everyone,” Stokes adds.

Build relationships

“In an institution, there is no chance to build up a rapport with clients,” says a home care provider. “An attractive feature of home care is that you are able to have that relationship. You can interact one-on-one with a patient instead of caring for a number of patients.” Plus, “seeing a patient flourish because of the care you’ve given them is something to be proud of”, says another expert.

Take a test drive

You can give home care a try without quitting your day job by taking some per diem assignments through an agency. Most people will know immediately whether they love home care or hate it. “There’s no in-between,” says one of the experts.