BAYADA Home Health Care & Nurses Week 2018

Being a medical professional, especially a nurse, requires so much time and care. I want to take some time during Nurses Week to give a shout out to nurses everywhere for the fantastic work they do each and every day. Nursing isn’t a career. It’s a calling. One area of nursing that especially hits home for me is home health care because it's a unique connection with individuals in your community. When my husband had a heart attack, a home health care nurse visited and educated us on diabetes management and care. My husband was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type-2 during his heart attack hospital admission. I was a nursing student at the time and was drowning emotionally from the sheer experience of my husband having a 4-way coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. I needed help. We needed help. I knew about diabetes, but the nurse educated us on things I didn't learn in nursing school. From medications to possible side effects to potential complications, the nurse reviewed everything. She was so patient and kind. She even called weekly and allowed us to ask her questions. She made the entire process less scary. Diabetes is a life-long disease process, and she gave us the tools to manage it successfully. You can't put a value on that type of education and care.

Being a home health care nurse is especially rewarding and unique because it provides the opportunity for close ongoing interpersonal connections with your patients and their families. It’s a meaningful connection that is exclusive to home health care. As a nursing student, I had the ability to shadow a home health care nurse. I initially thought it would be exactly like inpatient-setting nursing. You perform the head to toe assessments, chart your actions, and administer medications. I was very wrong. When the home health nurse arrived at the patient's home, I could see there was a deep relationship there. The dynamics were nothing like the inpatient-setting. The relationship was filled with familiarity and admiration. The nurse knew the patient's need before he could even ask. She wasn't just a nurse to him. They were friends. They shared intimate moments and valued each other. They joked around, and she educated him with each assessment. It wasn't just about nursing. It was about the relationship itself. He trusted her wholeheartedly, and she respected that relationship. I had never seen anything like it, and haven't since then.

To all the nurses out there, you should be feeling appreciated every day, not just during Nurses Week. Or, if you’re not working full-time and aren’t getting what you need from your employer, you should be looking into other employment options. That’s why I’m partnering with BAYADA Home Health Care this Nurses Week – because BAYADA puts their nurses first. BAYADA Home Health Care values its employees by offering competitive compensation and benefits, including ongoing education and leadership opportunities, and much more. The company is grounded in what is referred to as “The BAYADA Way,” which is rooted in the belief that clients come first, employees are the company’s greatest asset, and everyone should be treated with compassion, excellence, and reliability.

For this year’s Nurses Week, BAYADA is encouraging you to “Share, Care, Dare” – share your stories about how nursing has touched your life in one way or another; consider home health care as a way to care for your loved ones or as a career choice; and dare to change your career path by applying to BAYADA. Visit http://bit.ly/2JJfK5S to learn more about the other ways the team takes care of caregivers. Check out this self-care kit BAYADA Home Health Care sent in honor of Nurses Week full of self-care items. BAYADA knows how to take care of its nurses so they can take care of their patients – they even made a custom nursing bag based on their nurses’ feedback to make life easier for them. I'm loving this kit – happy Nurses Week, everyone!

Note: This blog post was a paid sponsorship by BAYADA Home Health Care