Home Healthcare Services: Benefits and Challenges in 2024

During the pandemic, the healthcare business was completely disrupted. As a whole, healthcare systems have been more overworked than any other industry or occupation. Hospitals were overwhelmed with patients due to the coronavirus outbreak, which caused a critical scarcity of medical resources and an increasing death toll that showed no signs of abating. The healthcare industry has been compelled to conduct a comprehensive review of its systems and operations due to the relentless and extreme pressure that has persisted for several months.

Many changes have occurred in the healthcare business since the pandemic began, with a resurgence of interest in healthcare services as a means to reduce spending on an already overburdened system. A practice commonplace fifty years ago—home visits by doctors to check on patients—is seeing a significant renaissance.

Home healthcare services: how easy and affordable are they?

Many factors drive the rapid expansion of home care services, including an aging population, the prevalence of chronic diseases, and the need for more cost-effective medical practices. This trend has been crucial in reducing hospital expenses. In the last five years, the home healthcare business has risen at a yearly pace of 2.2%, reaching $96.9 billion. IBISWorld predicts that this growth will continue.

Home healthcare management services are becoming more popular among the elderly as a result of the expansion of Medicare and Medicaid made possible by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010.

Explain home care and the services it provides.

People with impairments, chronic health conditions, tracheostomy and ventilator care, and post-operative recovery are the best candidates for home care. Still, any type of professional support assistance can be helpful. This sector of the healthcare market consists of home health aides, therapists, nurses, hospice care providers, and any other health service provider tasked with providing immediate or ongoing care to patients in their homes. Home health care services come in various forms, including:

Home health aide services or senior care: Personal care and companionship are the responsibilities of healthcare professionals providing home health aide services or senior care. Their help with cooking, cleaning, and other housekeeping chores is something they do on a daily basis.  

Private duty and nursing care: Healthcare professionals providing private duty and nursing care assist individuals with long-term medical conditions or disabilities on a shift, hourly, or permanent basis. Types that fall under this category include catastrophic, tracheostomy, and ventilator care. 

Home health care: Visiting nurses who work under the supervision of doctors to aid patients in their recovery from disease or injury is part of home health care. 

Benefits of Home Care

An appealing aspect of home healthcare is the ability to receive assistance with daily activities like bathing, cooking, and cleaning without leaving the comfort of one’s home. In the aftermath of treatment, patients can receive high-quality care in the form of companionship. Assistance with daily duties and prevention of needless hospitalization. Services related to rehabilitation and therapy fall within this sector. Here are a few advantages:

Reduce falls and the rate of hospital readmissions: 

With home healthcare, patients, especially the elderly, are less likely to sustain injuries from falls and injuries that occur in the home, which, in turn, reduces the risk of hospital readmissions. It is also recognized for helping patients heal faster.  

Assistance with housework: 

Patients can take advantage of the services nurses and caregivers offer without having to remain in hospitals. Home care services might assist patients with housekeeping and other daily duties. 

A respite for patient families: 

Patient families are already under a tremendous amount of stress from providing care around the clock. Attempts to prioritize the patient’s comfort may come at the cost of the family’s well-being. Caregivers who come to their homes might allow them to unwind and recharge. 

Similar, occasionally superior, standard of care in comparison to hospitals: 

The quality of treatment is comparable to, or even better than, that which is available in hospitals; nevertheless, even with devoted nurses, patients in hospitals may not always get the individual attention they need due to the high volume of patients. A committed caregiver can attend to a patient’s unique requirements in the familiar setting of their own home. 

Alterations to requirements are less of a hassle.

After a hospital management stay, patients typically have to make significant changes to their daily routines. Which can be challenging to maintain for at least a few months. To make the change easier on the elderly. A caregiver can assist with redesigning the living area and altering daily routines. 

Challenges in Providing Home Healthcare Services

The maturation of the pharmaceutical and home healthcare supply chains has been a long-term neglect. Even more so, in the wake of the pandemic, patients have suffered as a result of healthcare supply chain shortcomings that have not been adequately upgraded. Some of the problems that need fixing in the healthcare supply sector are these:

• The acute care demands of patients are difficult to manage due to a lack of durable medical equipment (DME). Including life-sustaining and assistive devices. A Harvard Business Review article claims that the current DME scarcity in the United States is the result of low-quality, cost-cutting equipment procured through competitive bidding. 

• Recruiting and maintaining employees – One of the major obstacles in home healthcare is the high turnover rate of employees. Which is 64% on average, according to a study by Home Health Care News.  

• The healthcare supply chains did not receive the attention they required prior to the pandemic due to inadequate technology infrastructure. The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light numerous gaps that required filling. One of these was the home-based delivery system, which includes services like mobile labs and radiology. The delivery of medications directly to patients’ homes.