Home Health Aide

Hours: 154 / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

Home Health Aides work directly with individuals in their homes to provide assistance with daily living and self-care tasks.  Home health aides help people who are disabled, chronically ill, or cognitively impaired. They often help older adults who need assistance. In some states, home health aides may be able to give a client medication or check the client’s vital signs under the direction of a nurse or other healthcare practitioner.  This course will provide a comprehensive overview of the Home Health Aide profession through the use of theoretical and practical applications.  Students will learn about the medical and social needs of home health care clients, as well as the nutrition, personal care, cleaning, and infection control tasks required of Home Health Aides. Upon completion of this course, students will be fully prepared to begin working with clients in their homes. In addition,  this course will provide an initial educational foundation for students preparing to take state licensing or certification exams. However, since the requirements for each state differ, students will have to conduct their own research to determine state-specific certification requirements. Depending on the state requirements, the student may need to complete additional coursework or additional licensing requirements (e.g. externship or other work experience) beyond the completion of this course.

Students will:

• Identify the roles of the members of a home healthcare team.
• Explain the various client rights.
• Identify how to recognize and report abuse.
• Describe the roles and responsibilities of a home health aide.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Home Care and the Healthcare System

This lesson provides background information on the structure of the healthcare system, including the purpose of home care and ways healthcare is paid.

Lesson 2: The Home Health Aide and the Care Team

In this lesson, you will learn about the various members of the healthcare team. This includes a look at the tasks typical of a home health aide and the federal regulations that govern this role.

Lesson 3: Legal and Ethical Issues

The focus of this lesson is the legal and ethical issues that are common for home health aides. This includes recognizing abuse and neglect as well as understanding advanced directives and other client rights.

Lesson 4: Communication and Cultural Diversity

Working with others is a main function of the role of home health aides. This includes working with people from a variety of backgrounds and religions. This lesson demonstrates the methods for effective communication and what to do to overcome barriers to effective communication. Medical terminology is also covered.

Lesson 5: Infection Prevention and Standard Precautions

This lesson covers one of the most basic principles of healthcare, that of infection prevention and standard precaution. This important lesson will cover hand hygiene, sterilization, and when to use personal protective equipment.

Lesson 6: Safety and Body Mechanics

Body mechanics is a topic that you will use when working with clients, but also in your daily life. The use of proper body mechanics will help ensure clients don't get injured at home and that you won't get injured on the job. This lesson focuses on applying principles of body mechanics to daily activities. Safety, both in the client's home and in your job activities, is also covered.

Lesson 7: Emergency Care and Disaster Preparation

Home health aides are sometimes called upon to help with disaster preparation and care during emergencies. This lesson will help identify how to respond to medical emergencies, give first aid, and understand disaster procedures.

Lesson 8: Physical, Psychological, and Social Health

Holistic care is the focus of this lesson. It is well known that physical, psychological, and social health all entwine to create the overall health of a person. This lesson will help identify ways to meet a client's unique spiritual, physical, and emotional needs.

Lesson 9: Body Systems and Related Conditions

This lesson introduces all the anatomical systems of the body as well as common conditions associated with each system.

Lesson 10: Confusion, Dementia, and Alzheimer's Disease

This lesson will prepare you to work with clients that have dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. This includes daily interventions for helping with activities of daily living, creative therapies, and strategies for communication.

Lesson 11: Human Development and Aging

Home health aides work with clients of all age groups. This lesson describes typical stages of development as well as normal changes for aging.

Lesson 12: Positioning, Transfers, and Ambulation

This lesson will teach you the safest ways to position and transfer clients, as well as help with ambulation.

Lesson 13: Personal Care Skills

Assisting clients with personal care is one of the main roles of a home health aide. This lesson describes procedures for assisting with grooming, bathing, oral care, and elimination.

Lesson 14: Core Healthcare Skills

Core healthcare skills involve those that most patients will need at some point. This lesson includes topics such as monitoring vital signs, catheter care, applying dressings, and the application of elastic stockings.

Lesson 15: Medications and Technology in Home Care

Assisting clients with their medication needs is a critical component of a home health aide's job. This lesson provides guidelines for safe and proper care of medication, what to do in the event of a medication emergency, and how to store medicine. The use of IV therapy and oxygen equipment is also covered.

Lesson 16: Rehabilitation and Restorative Care

The topic of this lesson is helping clients who are recovering from surgery or need restorative care. Topics include range of motion exercises, how to adapt the environment for people with mobility limitations, and preventing pressure injuries.

Lesson 17: Clients with Disabilities

Home health aides need to understand the limitations and challenges that people with disabilities often face. This lesson covers how best to assist clients with a variety of disabilities, including social and emotional needs and personal care procedures.

Lesson 18: Mental Health and Mental Health Disorders

Lesson 18 includes characteristics of mental health and the connection between mental health and physical wellness. The role of the home health aide in caring for clients with mental health disorders is also covered.

Lesson 19: New Mothers, Infants, and Children

This lesson will help you prepare to care for new mothers and their newborns. Topics include postpartum care, handling a newborn, and identifying signs of child abuse.

Lesson 20: Dying, Death, and Hospice

As difficult as it can be, home health aides do have to work with clients who die. This lesson describes the stages of grief, how to care for a client who is dying, and describe postmortem care.

Lesson 21: Clean, Safe, and Healthy Environments

Home health aides must help their clients maintain a clean, safe, and healthy environment. This lesson will explain how to properly clean various areas of the home, laundry procedures, and bedmaking.

Lesson 22: Clients' Nutritional Needs

This lesson describes proper nutrition and special diets. It also covers hydration and guidelines for assisting with eating.

Lesson 23: Meal Planning, Shopping Preparation, and Storage

As a follow up to lesson 22, this lesson will explain how to prepare, shop, and store food in a client's home.

Lesson 24: Managing Time, Energy, and Money

As a home health aide, you will often have to handle your client's money. This lesson describes how to manage your time, to work more efficiently, and to handle the money of your client.

Lesson 25: Caring for Yourself and Your Career

This final lesson discusses the different types of careers in healthcare, how to apply for and find a job, and the documents you need when searching for a job.

All necessary course materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.