Home Care Agency
Home care, (also referred to as domiciliary care, social care, or in-home care), is supportive care provided in the home. Care is provided by professional caregivers who provide daily care to help to ensure the activities of daily living (ADL’s). Home care is non-medical and is provided by caregivers who are not nurses, doctors, or other licensed medical personnel. Home care provides families and individuals with valuable services to support independent living for those ill, disabled, or coping with the challenges of aging.
Home Health Agency
Home health care is a formal, regulated program of care delivered by a variety of health care professionals in the patient’s home for the treatment of a medical condition, illness or disability. Home health is provided through certified home health agencies (HHAs).
As components of the post-acute continuum of care, HHAs provide essential health care services. This specialized support allows patients to remain at home when they would otherwise have to be admitted to a costly institutional setting, such as a skilled-nursing facility or hospital.
Hospital Case Management and Discharge Planning
Case management is a collaborative process that includes the assessment, planning and coordination of options and services to meet a patient’s medical care needs. Effective case management utilizes available resources to achieve high-quality and cost-effective outcomes.
Discharge planning is one function of case management. In the hospital setting, case managers assist patients and families in developing a discharge plan, including coordination of home care, community based medical services and, when necessary, admission to a post-acute care facility, such as an acute rehabilitation unit or hospital, or skilled-nursing facility.
Hospice
Hospice provides comprehensive and interdisciplinary health care to terminally ill patients, as well as bereavement and support services to the patients’ loved ones. Patients receiving hospice care forgo curative treatments. Hospice care is provided through certified hospice programs, and may be delivered in any patient care setting, but is most often provided in the patient’s home.
Palliative Care
Palliative care is used to relieve the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness, with a goal to improve quality of life for patients and their families. Palliative care, which may be used in any patient-care setting, is appropriate at any point in an illness and may be provided at the same time as curative treatments.
Post Acute Care
Following a hospitalization for injury or illness, many patients require continued medical care, either at home or in a specialized facility. Post-acute care refers to a range of medical care services that support the individual’s continued recovery from illness or management of a chronic illness or disability.
Rehabilitation and Therapy Service
Medical rehabilitation focuses on improving or restoring functional independence for individuals with disabilities resulting from injury, illness or a medical condition.
Medical rehabilitation is provided at all levels of the health care continuum, including general acute-care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), skilled-nursing facilities, long-term-care hospitals, outpatient programs and home health agencies.
Skilled Nursing Facility
Skilled-nursing facilities (SNFs) have the staff and equipment to provide skilled nursing, medical management and therapy services to individuals, on a 24-hour basis, who do not require high-intensity services provided in the hospital setting.
Sub-Acute Care
Sub-Acute Care units provide a specialized level of care to medically fragile patients. Sub-Acute patients are individuals who do not need acute care, but who are too ill to be cared for by most skilled-nursing facilities. Frequently, these individuals are ventilator-dependent or require frequent respiratory treatments. While sub-acute beds are licensed as skilled-nursing beds, they are reimbursed differently and are subject to additional staffing and patient criteria requirements.
– California Hospital Association
