Unlike personal care aides, who provide comprehensive care, HSAs focus on health and safety. They help with grooming, bathing and cooking, but they usually don't help with errands or heavy cleaning. Home Care Sarasota FL services provided by care staff can range from helping with personal care (e.g., some assistive care providers may also provide limited assistance with medications). Assistive care is non-medical supportive care. Assistive care providers may have different titles, such as personal care aides (PCA), home health care aides (HHA), and certified nursing aides (CNA).
While job responsibilities may be similar, there are differences between the three in terms of training requirements and scope of practice (i.e., home care, sometimes referred to as “home care”), means non-medical services for older people who require assistance with daily tasks. Their workdays are often physically active and include activities such as running errands, repositioning patients, and doing rounds in healthcare settings. There are no federally mandated training requirements for personal care aides, although some states or employers may require personal care aides to complete a training program. Often, all the durable medical equipment needed is included, in addition to services such as injections, wound care, and physical and occupational therapy. An agency is often more expensive, but its staff takes care of things like background checks, taxes, and payroll, and finding replacement care when needed. To maintain certification, the home health assistant must complete a minimum of 12 hours of continuing training (continuing education) each year.
When deciding between personal care aides and home health aides for you or a loved one, consider your care needs. If home care is the right option for your loved one, you have the option of hiring an independent caregiver on your own or hiring caregivers through a home care agency. However, the world of home care can be complex because of the different functions and types of care available. They can also provide some services related to basic health care (such as measuring vital signs, administering medications, or helping with the medical team) under the supervision of a licensed health professional.
Personal care aides don't manage health care, so their training is less rigorous than that of home health aides. An HHA, also called a health care assistant, is someone who has received specialized training and has a specific certification, also known as a home health assistant certification, which allows them to not only provide personal care to your loved one, but also different types of medical care from the comfort of your loved one's home. However, caregivers, who are usually family members who perform the role themselves, do not require specialized training or certification, so there is overlap and sometimes confusion between the two roles in the industry. While an HHA will perform many of the tasks that a caregiver performs, its role and responsibilities extend a little further to providing medical care. When daily tasks become difficult for you or your elderly loved one, a personal care assistant can step in.
