Types of Home Health Care Services: list of health services | Types of healthcare facilities

Types of Home Health Care Services

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What are the different types of home health care services?

                    Fig: Types of healthcare facilities

The range of home health care services a patient can receive at home is limitless. Depending on the individual patient's situation, care can range from nursing care to specialized medical services, such as laboratory workups. You and your doctor will determine your care plan and services you may need at home. At-home care services may include:

• Doctor care. A doctor may visit a patient at home to diagnose and treat the illness(es). He or she may also periodically review the home health care needs.
• Nursing care. The most common form of home health care is some type of nursing care depending on the person's needs. In consultation with the doctor, a registered nurse will set up a plan of care. Nursing care may include wound dressing, ostomy care, intravenous therapy, administering medication, monitoring the general health of the patient, pain control, and other health support.
• Physical, occupational, and/or speech therapy. Some patients may need help relearning how to perform daily duties or improve their speech after an illness or injury. A physical therapist can put together a plan of care to help a patient regain or strengthen use of muscles and joints. An occupational therapist can help a patient with physical, developmental, social, or emotional disabilities relearn how to perform such daily functions as eating, bathing, dressing, and more. A speech therapist can help a patient with impaired speech regain the ability to communicate clearly.
• Medical social services. Medical social workers provide various services to the patient, including counseling and locating community resources to help the patient in his or her recovery. Some social workers are also the patient's case manager--if the patient's medical condition is very complex and requires coordination of many services.
• Care from home health aides. Home health aides can help the patient with his or her basic personal needs such as getting out of bed, walking, bathing, and dressing. Some aides have received specialized training to assist with more specialized care under the supervision of a nurse.
• Homemaker or basic assistance care. While a patient is being medically cared for in the home, a homemaker or person who helps with chores or tasks can maintain the household with meal preparation, laundry, grocery shopping, and other housekeeping items.
• Companionship. Some patients who are home alone may require a companion to provide comfort and supervision. Some companions may also perform household duties.
• Volunteer care. Volunteers from community organizations can provide basic comfort to the patient through companionship, helping with personal care, providing transportation, emotional support, and/or helping with paperwork.
• Nutritional support. Dietitians can come to a patient's home to provide dietary assessments and guidance to support the treatment plan.
• Laboratory and X-ray imaging
  Certain laboratory tests, such as blood and urine tests, can be performed in the comfort of the patient's home. In addition, portable X-ray machines allow lab technicians to perform this service at home.list of health services.list of health services
• Pharmaceutical services. Medicine and medical equipment can be delivered at home. If the patient needs it, training can be provided on how to take medicines or use of the equipment, including intravenous therapy.list of health services
• Transportation. There are companies that provide transportation to patients who require transportation to and from a medical facility for treatment or physical exams.list of health services
• Home-delivered meals. Often called Meals-on-Wheels, many communities offer this service to patients at home who are unable to cook for themselves. Depending on the person's needs, hot meals can be delivered several times a week.

• 12 Types of healthcare facilities

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1. Ambulatory surgical centers

Ambulatory surgical centers, also called outpatient surgical facilities, allow patients to receive certain surgical procedures outside a hospital environment. These environments often offer surgeries at a lower cost than hospitals while also reducing the risk of exposure to infection—since patients are there for surgery, not to recover from sickness and disease.

Ambulatory surgical centers don’t provide diagnostic services or clinic hours. Instead, they take patients who have been referred for surgery by a hospital or physician—they’re designed to be “all business” when it comes to surgical care.

2. Birth centers

A birth center is a healthcare facility for childbirth that focuses on the midwifery model, according to the American Association of Birth Centers. They aim to create a birth environment that feels more comfortable to the mother and allows for a cost-effective, family-inclusive birth.

Birth centers are not typically equipped with the same contingency equipment and staff as a hospital, such as surgeons in case of a C-section or a neonatal intensive care unit. As a result, birth centers accommodate only healthy pregnancies without any known risk or complication factors.

These facilities are guided by principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, cost-effectiveness and appropriate medical intervention when needed.

3. Blood banks

Blood banks allow donors to donate blood and platelets while also storing and sorting blood into components that can be used most effectively by patients.

“Red blood cells carry oxygen, platelets help the blood clot and plasma has specific proteins that allows proper regulation of coagulation and healing,” writes the American Society of Hematology. Sometimes patients need these particular components specifically, and sometimes they just need lots of blood. For example, a single car accident victim could require as many as 100 pints of blood.

Blood is essential for human life, and it can’t be manufactured—only donated. So these facilities work to build the supply for patients who need it.

4. Clinics and medical offices

The definition of a clinic is “a facility for diagnosis and treatment of outpatients.” There are many healthcare facilities that fit that definition across a wide variety of treatment specialties.

Many people go to a clinic for routine doctor’s appointments and checkups. These healthcare facilities can be a physician’s private practice, a group practice setting or a corporately owned clinic that may be connected to a larger healthcare system or hospital.

Clinics cover a lot of ground in healthcare. For example, you could visit a dental clinic to have a toothache investigated, a physical therapy clinic to recover from an athletic injury or a pediatric speech therapy clinic to help your child overcome an articulation disorder.

If there is a specialized health area you need to see an expert for, then odds are that there’s a clinic somewhere to accommodate you. The goal of these clinics is to give people preventative care and important diagnoses with as much convenience as possible.

That goal has also led to “walk-in” clinics becoming situated in grocery and convenience stores, malls and even airports. These clinics allow patients to get a flu shot or receive a prescription without making an appointment at their physician’s office. While many medical providers believe that a continued relationship with a provider is better for patients’ long-term health, the speed, convenience and sometimes lower cost of a walk-in clinic can be ideal for a quick need.

5. Diabetes education centers

Diabetes is a very serious illness in the United States. Over 30 million people have diabetes and many of them don’t know it, reports the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Additionally, over a third of the national population is highly at risk for diabetes, in a condition called prediabetes.

Patients with diabetes need to manage the disease and typically make lifestyle adjustments to keep it from becoming life-threatening. Since diabetes is so widespread, diabetes education centers rose up to help patients manage their disease and to help people at risk for diabetes to avoid it, if possible.

Diabetes education centers typically offer classes, education, support groups and a variety of resources to help patients manage their diabetes and live as complication-free as possible.

6. Dialysis Centers

Patients with kidney disease often need regular treatments of dialysis. Dialysis is a process that filters and cleans the blood artificially—the work functioning kidneys normally take on. About 14 percent of Americans have chronic kidney disease. When kidneys aren’t able to filter the blood the way they are supposed to, patients might need dialysis as often as three times a week to avoid serious complications. With such high demand, dialysis facilities rose up to meet patient needs and avoid undue strain on hospitals.

7. Hospice homes

Hospice can be a particularly confusing title. It represents a package of insurance benefits that deals with an end-of-life trajectory. It also represents a philosophy of care provision for dying patients as well as official networks that offer hospice care. Hospice is also a designation for specific healthcare facilities that specialize in end-of-life care.

Hospice care is a model that provides not only medical support, but also emotional and even spiritual support for patients and their families. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care organization, a patient with hospice care has a team of care providers made up of the patient's personal physician, a hospice physician, nurses, home health aides, social workers, clergy or other counselors and physical or occupational therapists, if needed.

Though patients can receive hospice care at home, if their medical needs are significant, they might live in a nursing home with hospice care, or a specified hospice home.

8. Hospitals

Hospitals are the ultimate “catch-all” healthcare facility. Their services can vary greatly depending on their size and location, but a hospital’s goal is to save lives. Hospitals typically have a wide range of units that can be loosely broken into intensive care and non-intensive care units.

Intensive care units deal with emergencies and the most serious illnesses and injuries. Patients with imminently life-threatening problems go here.

Non-intensive care units include things like childbirth, surgeries, rehabilitation, step-down units for patients who have just been treated in intensive care and many others. Typically, most hospital beds could be classified as non-intensive care.

9. Imaging and radiology centers

These facilities, much like their hospital counterparts, offer diagnostic imaging services to patients. Diagnostic imaging includes CT scans, ultrasounds, X-rays, MRIs and more. While hospitals and even clinics have imaging centers, outpatient facilities help keep costs lower and allow more convenient scheduling for patients.

Hospital facilities will likely handle imaging for urgent cases, such as an MRI for a brain injury. But any imaging that can be scheduled in advance, such as ultrasounds to monitor a pregnancy, could take place at an imaging center.

10. Mental health and addiction treatment centers

This type of healthcare facility is a grouping for many different types of facilities. Specialty treatment centers exist all across America for specified mental health issues and addictions.

Mental health treatment facilities sometimes exist as a general institution for any mental health issue and are sometimes specialized. Examples of these kinds of facilities are suicidal thoughts (or suicidal ideation) treatment, depression treatment, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment, treatment for anxiety disorders, behavioral disorders and more.

You can find inpatient or outpatient versions of many mental health facilities, designed to assist patients through different stages of their healing processes. At the acute-care level, you can find mental health wards in hospitals—as well as hospitals specifically devoted to mental health and long-term care facilities.

Addiction treatment centers typically deal with drug and alcohol addictions, as well as problematic behavioral addictions like gambling, work, shopping or the internet.

11. Nursing homes

Nursing homes offer a living situation for patients whose medical needs aren’t severe enough for hospitalization, but are too serious to manage at home. Some nursing homes offer services for heavier medical needs, such as speech and occupational therapy. Other nursing homes try to create a homier atmosphere, and might operate like an apartment complex with medical staff on hand.

According to the National Care Planning Council (NCPC), nursing homes enable patients with injuries, acute illnesses or postoperative care needs to recover in an environment outside the hospital. These facilities offer long-term medical care ranging from simple to complex levels of need in an environment built for residents to live in long term instead of just staying a few weeks or months.

Many people picture elderly patients in a nursing home. For the most part that’s true—over 80 percent of patients are over the age of 65. But there are also younger patients in nursing homes who may have serious long-term illnesses and need care beyond what their families can provide.

12. Orthopedic and other rehabilitation centers

Orthopedic medicine deals with muscles and bones. Physical therapists are typically the practitioner patients see for problems in these areas of the body. If you are experiencing chronic lower back pain, for example, you might see a physical therapist at an orthopedic center or clinic to get a diagnosis and a plan of treatment.

Orthopedic centers deal in everything from athletic injuries to therapy for patients with disabilities. They typically offer evaluation and diagnosis of the problem, as well as prevention, treatment and rehabilitation work involving bone, tendon, ligament, muscle and joint conditions.

These healthcare facilities have a variety of names depending on their specialization. They might simple be called outpatient physical therapy centers. Or you could find pediatric physical therapy clinics, sports medicine centers or geriatric physical therapy clinics.

There are also rehabilitation centers where patients can receive various therapies to help restore their abilities after an illness or injury. Physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy are all processes that help people gain or regain skills they need to move around, work or speak in daily life.

Practitioners at rehabilitation centers work with people to help them recover as much of their mobility and independence as possible. Outpatient rehab centers can relieve the strain on hospital rehabilitation floors.