National Nurses Week: Working from (the patients’) home as a home health nurse

Megan Henson, a licensed practical nurse (LPN), lives in Bloomfield. She works there too, sometimes, but other times her job takes her to Dexter, Kennett, Cape Girardeau or wherever any of the hundreds of patients she has served live.

Henson is a home health nurse with the not-for-profit Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Missouri (VNA).

Her previous nursing experience consisted of working in a nursing home, which she was her career cup of tea. She took a position with VNA and enjoyed the job much more.

“I’ve just kind of always felt pulled to help people and take care of them. Nursing seemed like a good fit, and I’ve loved it ever since I started doing it,” she said.

She said she prefers working one-on-one with her patients.

“Obviously you can call people and ask them questions, but it’s ultimately up to you, so having that independence is a big help,” she said.

Facets of Henson’s job include wound care, IV therapy, managing new diagnoses and educating patients about their treatments. Since she started as a home health nurse at VNA in November 2016, she has taken care of several hundred patients.

Henson said many of her patients feel more comfortable being treated at home as opposed to in a hospital or nursing home. It also allows her more time to help each patient individually instead of having to worry about multiple patients at once.

“I feel like I can slow down at times, really figure out what’s going on and really help them,” she said.

At VNA, patients from a 12-county service area can call local offices in Cape Girardeau, Dexter, Kennett and Sikeston to request nurses. Schedulers analyze which visits need to be made and assign them to nurses in the area.

Sometimes, Henson is called to take care of patients who she knows outside of work.

“I’ve never had a problem with any of them not wanting me to be their nurse. I just try to make it as professional as I can be and separate personal from professional,” she said.

There are currently 18 home health nurses working at VNA, totaling almost half of its nursing staff. For those interested in entering the home health field, Henson said it pays to do one’s research and be sure to have a good idea of what they’d like to be doing.

“There are several different types of programs of in-home home health, and we all do different things,” she said.

She added critical thinking and a degree of self-autonomy are ideal traits to have.

In Henson’s experience, it seems as though the home heath profession grew following the coronavirus pandemic.

“The hospitals got so full with the COVID patients that they were sending us patients that had a lot higher acuity, so we’ve been taking on a lot more since COVID,” she said.

Each month, VNA serves between 500 and 700 patients. The home health nurses care for an average of 180 patients per day as a whole.

“It can be nervous going into a home that you’ve never been to and going in there. So it takes a strong person and a different type of nurse, I think, to go into those environments and provide that care there,” VNA home health director Maria Chase said.

The nurses serve all age groups, helping people with disabilities, those who have suffered accidents and the elderly who cannot care for themselves.

“At VNA, we pride ourselves on the fact that we offer all services in the home so it’s a full range, everything from pediatric nursing for children to in-home services, homemakers for the elderly,” Chase added.