Providing Supervision of Other Healthcare Workers

Arranging and overseeing care for your loved one can be difficult if you don’t know what services are available in your area or even who you should hire to perform certain tasks of care.

How can you tell if your loved one is receiving appropriate/good care from a professional?

How can you tell when your loved one needs more care than you are able to provide?

Here are some tips that may help you as you look for, and then supervise, care that others will provide to your loved one:

• Make a list of all the health care tasks that your loved one needs.
• Talk with your loved one’s doctor about the care tasks that you are unable or unwilling to perform and ask about care services in your area.
• When you phone home nursing or home health care agencies to ask for help, be sure to ask them for names and phone numbers of current and past clients.
• When you phone past and current users of the agency, ask questions like:
  • Do the workers show up on time?
  • Do they seem knowledgeable about your loved one’s illness?
  • Do they follow standard hygiene practices (frequent hand washing)?
  • Do they take an interest in your loved one, or did it seem like they were there just to perform a task?
  • Was/is your loved one comfortable with the workers who came to provide care?
  • If the need came up again, would you hire this agency to provide care to your loved one?
• When you first meet the home care provider, you may need to establish some rules for them in your home, for example, let them know whether you allow smoking in your home.
• When you have an agency nurse or home health aide providing care to your loved one, watch how the care provider talks with and provides care to your loved one.
  • Does the worker show respect?
  • Does your loved one appear comfortable with the care provider?
  • Are the goals of the home care assistance being reached?
  • Is your loved one obtaining comfort, assistance with bathing/dressing/mobility, medications or feedings being infused as the doctor ordered?
  • Do you feel comfortable with the care provider in your home?
• If you feel there is a problem with the care that is being provided to your loved one, be sure to speak up.
• List specifics that upset you.
• Talk to the care provider about how you’d like things done.
• Listen to their side of the story; there may be a medical reason that they are doing things in a certain way.
• If things don’t improve, phone the agency right away.
• Ask that another care provider be sent to your home.
• If you are happy with the care that’s being provided, tell the person who’s providing the care and phone their supervisor to tell them as well.