Home Healthcare

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In compliance with BrainMass rules this is not a hand in ready assignment but is only guidance.

HRM is important to home healthcare because Human Resource Management is the key to the operations of home healthcare. If home healthcare provides a wide range of healthcare services at home for illness of injury, the HRM must provide the personnel who will deliver the services at home. The objective of home healthcare is to provide a range of services at home that are less expensive, more convenience, and just as effective as the patient can get in a hospital or a skilled nursing home(1). The service is delivered by home care personnel. First, Human Resource Management has to recruit the personnel who will deliver the service. The selection of the personnel must not only take into consideration the qualifications and the experience of the person but should also take into consideration the temperament of the person, the ability to work in an environment where there is not direct supervision, and must be self motivated. During the recruitment process Human Resource Management must determine if the applicant has the ability to make decisions in an environment where she cannot consult her superiors or peers. Specifically, the role of HRM is critical because it is not adequate to select a person who can exercise patients, administer medicines, or change dressings but also the applicant must be able to make decisions independently as to when to exercise the patient, when to administer medication, and when to change dressings. The HRM must select personnel who are self-motivated, can independently make decisions, and have the ability to work at different homes with integrity. An applicant who has the tendency to steal is not appropriate for home healthcare position. Stealing by one employee can bring ill-repute to the entire organization.
The role of Human Resource Management in home healthcare only begins with recruitment. It must provide technical and cultural training after a person is recruited. Technical training is related to medical procedures and other services that the new employee is required to provide. For example, the new recruit must be able to measure the blood pressure of the home healthcare patient accurately(2). At this stage she also receives training in the organization's computer software so that she can enter patient data from the patient's home, communicate with her superiors, and receive instructions from her supervising nurse. Further, the Human Resource Management must provide training about the applicable laws to home healthcare. The new employee must not violate any law relating to providing home healthcare. An important training that Human Resource Management provides the new employee is the cultural training. This training familiarizes the new employee with shared assumptions, values, and beliefs which govern how people behave in organizations. These values convey to the new employee how they dress, act, and perform their jobs(3). For example, the cultural training teaches how the new home healthcare employee greets the patient when she visits her home, how she interacts with the patient, and the types of actions she takes everyday when she visits patients home.

The next role of Human Resource Management is to motivate the employees to work efficiently and in conformance with the standards of the home healthcare organization. HRM prepares performance evaluation for different groups and levels of employees. The criteria are decided on the basis of the job description, discussion with supervisors, and interactions with the actual employees. The performance evaluation ...