Home Health: Need for Advanced Direct Care Workers; CMS Proposes Star Ratings

​Home health direct care workers should receive training to allow them to provide more advanced care, meeting the needs of home health patients and simultaneously providing a strengthened career ladder for home health workers, according to an article by the Eldercare Workforce Alliance (EWA) published in the December 2014 Annals of Long-Term Care. EWA argues that such a role is necessary to fill gaps in chronic care management, especially when patients cannot or will not adhere to consistent care plans themselves. Home care workers are often asked to participate in increasingly complex tasks related to such care but without necessary training, EWA writes—tasks include catheter insertion, removal, and maintenance; nebulizer treatment oversight; providing care for minor cuts, abrasions, and wounds; and monitoring insulin therapy.