Activities	Home Health Aides provide routine, personal healthcare, such as bathing, dressing, or grooming, to elderly, convalescent, or disabled persons in the home of patients or in a residential care facility.
Outlook	Faster-than-average-job growth
Median Income	$20,170 per year in 2010
Work Context & Conditions	Most full-time aides work about 40 hours a week, but because patients need care 24 hours a day, some aides work evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. Many work part time.
Minimum Education Requirements	Vocational High School Program
Skills	Active Listening, Reading Comprehension
Abilities	Oral Expression, Problem Sensitivity, Oral Comprehension

Job Category		Healthcare Support
Job Description		Home health aides help elderly, convalescent, or disabled persons live in their own homes instead of in a health facility. Under the direction of nursing or medical staff, they provide health-related services, such as administering oral medications. Like nursing aides, home health aides may check patients’ pulse rates, temperatures, and respiration rates; help with simple prescribed exercises; keep patients’ rooms neat; and help patients move from bed, bathe, dress, and groom. Occasionally, they change nonsterile dressings, give massages and alcohol rubs, or assist with braces and artificial limbs. Experienced home health aides also may assist with medical equipment such as ventilators, which help patients breathe. Most home health aides work with elderly or disabled persons who need more extensive care than family or friends can provide. Some help discharged hospital patients who have relatively short-term needs. In home health agencies, a registered nurse, physical therapist, or social worker usually assigns specific duties and supervises home health aides, who keep records of the services they perform and record patients’ condition and progress. They report changes in patients’ conditions to the supervisor or case manager.
Working Conditions		Most full-time aides work about 40 hours a week, but because patients need care 24 hours a day, some aides work evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. Many work part time. In 2006, 23 percent of aides worked part time compared with 15 percent of all workers. Aides spend many hours standing and walking, and they often face heavy workloads. Because they may have to move patients in and out of bed or help them stand or walk, aides must guard against back injury. Aides also may face hazards from minor infections and major diseases, such as hepatitis, but can avoid infections by following proper procedures. Aides often have unpleasant duties, such as emptying bedpans and changing soiled bed linens. The patients they care for may be disoriented, irritable, or uncooperative. Psychiatric aides must be prepared to care for patients whose illness may cause violent behavior. While their work can be emotionally demanding, many aides gain satisfaction from assisting those in need. Home health aides may go to the same patient’s home for months or even years. However, most aides work with a number of different patients, each job lasting a few hours, days, or weeks. Home health aides often visit multiple patients on the same day. Home health aides generally work alone, with periodic visits by their supervisor. They receive detailed instructions explaining when to visit patients and what services to perform. Aides are individually responsible for getting to patients’ homes, and they may spend a good portion of the working day traveling from one patient to another. Because mechanical lifting devices available in institutional settings are seldom available in patients’ homes, home health aides are particularly susceptible to injuries resulting from overexertion when they assist patients.
Salary Range		Median annual wages of home health aides were $20,460 in 2008. The middle 50 percent earned between $17,700 and $24,300. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $15,900, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $29,000. Home health aides receive slight pay increases with experience and added responsibility. Usually, they are paid only for the time worked in the home; normally, they are not paid for travel time between jobs. Most employers hire only on-call hourly workers and provide no benefits.

Education Required		In many cases, neither a high school diploma nor previous work experience is necessary for a job as a nursing, psychiatric, or home health aide. A few employers, however, require some training or experience. Hospitals may require experience as a nursing aide or home health aide. Nursing care facilities often hire inexperienced workers who must complete a minimum of 75 hours of mandatory training and pass a competency evaluation program within 4 months of their employment.
Recommended High School Courses		Biology, Mathematics, Health
Postsecondary Instructional Programs
Certification and Licensing		The Federal Government has guidelines for home health aides whose employers receive reimbursement from Medicare. Federal law requires home health aides to pass a competency test covering a wide range of areas. A home health aide may receive training before taking the competency test. Federal law suggests at least 75 hours of training; observation and documentation of 17 skills for competency, supervised by a registered nurse and the passing of a written exam developed by NAHC. Training and testing programs may be offered by the employing agency, but must meet the standards of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Training programs vary with State regulations. The National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) offers national certification for home health aides. The certification is a voluntary demonstration that the individual has met industry standards.

Interest Area		Social Involves working and communicating with, helping, and teaching people.
Work Values		Achievement Get a feeling of accomplishment. Moral Values Never pressured to do things that go against their sense of right and wrong. Social Service Do things for other people.
Skills		Active Listening Listen to what other people are saying and ask questions as appropriate. Reading Comprehension Understand written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
Abilities		Oral Expression Able to convey information and ideas through speech in ways that others will understand. Problem Sensitivity Able to tell when something is wrong or likely to go wrong. This doesn't involve solving the problem, just recognizing that there is a problem. Oral Comprehension Able to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

Related Jobs		Assistant, Medical, Assistant, Occupational Therapy, Assistant, Physical Therapist, Aide, Personal and Home-Care, Aide, Physical Therapist, Aide, Occupational Therapist
Job Outlook		Overall employment of nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides is projected to grow faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2020, although individual occupational growth rates will vary. As the baby-boom population ages and the elderly population grows, the demand for home health and personal care aides to provide assistance and companionship will continue to increase.Consumer preference for care in the home and improvements in medical technologies for in-home treatment also will contribute to faster-than-average employment growth for home health aides. Numerous job openings for nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides will arise from a combination of fast employment growth and high replacement needs. High replacement needs in this large occupation reflect modest entry requirements, low pay, high physical and emotional demands, and lack of opportunities for advancement. For these same reasons, many people are unwilling to perform the kind of work required by the occupation. Therefore, persons who are interested in, and suited for, this work should have excellent job opportunities. Home health aides held roughly 1,878,700 jobs in 2010. Most home health aides (about one-third) were employed by home healthcare services. Others were employed in social assistance agencies, nursing and residential care facilities, and employment services.
More Information		National Association for Home Care
References		Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Home Health and Personal Care Aides, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health-and-personal-care-aides.htm O*NET OnLine, on the Internet at http://online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/31-1011.00