Development of the International Guidelines for Home Health Nursing

Abstract

Throughout the world, healthcare is increasingly being provided in home and community-based settings. There is a growing awareness that the most effective, least costly, patient-preferred setting is patients' home. Thus, home healthcare nursing is a growing nursing specialty, requiring a unique set of nursing knowledge and skills. Unlike many other nursing specialties, home healthcare nursing has few professional organizations to develop or support its practice. This article describes how an international network of home healthcare nurses developed international guidelines for home healthcare nurses throughout the world. It outlines how the guidelines for home healthcare nursing practice were developed, how an international panel of reviewers was recruited, and the process they used for reaching a consensus. It also describes the plan for nurses to contribute to future updates to the guidelines.

The Impact of Socioeconomic Factors and Geriatric Syndromes on Frailty among Elderly People Receiving Home-Based Healthcare: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Therefore, the need to improve the existing primary health system in Greece, including the education and training of health professionals in designing person-centered care, is apparent. Consequently, policymakers and vocational educational training providers have to focus on the development of geriatric nursing protocols encompassing skills and competencies related to the early recognition of frailty and dementia-related symptoms, thus preventing frailty and geriatric syndromes [ 35 , 36 ].…”

A Theoretical Framework of Home-Based Professional Nursing Practice

“…Home-based nursing practice is more than nursing care provided in a particular location or setting. It is a different way of being a nurse with a unique knowledge and skills set and a different approach to patient care (Narayan et al, 2017). Riekert (2021) provides a concept analysis of a home healthcare nurse with the operational definition of a licensed nursing professional demonstrating the five defining attributes of autonomy, adaptability, person-centered holistic care, care coordination, and nurse self-efficacy in critical thinking, communication, and clinical and system navigational skills.…”

“…As an additional resource, Gorski (2017) further describes implementation of the ANA standards in the home setting, giving examples of specific competencies of the nurse. The International Home Care Nurses Organization has built on the ANA document to provide additional descriptive statements to guide home-based nursing practice (Narayan et al, 2017). These guidelines provide a foundation for understanding context and guide development of concepts and theoretical statements for home-based nursing care.…”

Is Home Healthcare Nursing a Profession?

“…Other values include empathy, compassion, kindness, integrity, and altruism. Those with a high degree of professionalism advance the profession through mentoring new nurses in the values and practices of their specialty based on professional standards and guidelines (Narayan et al, 2017). They think critically about current practices and, when current systems and processes conflict with nursing values and best practices, they advocate for changes.…”

“…Although the IHCNO is a relatively new organization organization, it has already developed the International Guidelines for Home Health Nursing (www.ihcno.org/ resources-page; Narayan et al, 2017), and sponsored three international conferences in the United States and Singapore. Since the pandemic, we have focused on in-ternationally accessible webinars to promote education on issues important to home health nursing.…”