Healthcare for Men

Properly Design a Room for Home Healthcare for Your Loved One

 

Healthcare in a clinical setting it purposely set up so each and every patient can have the best chance of recovery. Unfortunately, our homes are not necessarily set up in a way to achieve this level of home care. When you or a loved one is returning home after an injury or illness, designing a room for home healthcare may seem difficult. As someone who has had to create their own home healthcare room, I can give you some insight into what needs to be taken into consideration when designing a home healthcare room for you or your loved one. Be sure to visit www.healthproductforyou.com any of your home healthcare needs.

Organization, Comfort, and Healing

When creating a healthcare room in the home, it’s important to do things in an ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing way. This is just a fancy way of saying be organized and create an environment in which your loved one can recover peacefully. Creating this environment of harmony and efficiency can include:

• Create a room that minimizes noise
• Ensure easy access
• Incorporate medical supply storage (shelves, carts, baskets etc.)
• Make sure to have a comfortable temperature for patient
• Proper lighting
• Have a caregiver friendly station

Besides having a room that’s conducive to recovery/healing and properly equipped, it’s crucial to maintain cleanliness and infection control to promote effective healing or everyday life. There’s no reason to introduce bacteria or viruses to someone trying to recover!! This means having handwashing stations available to caregivers as well as personal protective equipment (PPE). Give any caregiver a rundown of how you would like your home healthcare room to operate.

Try:

• Breakdown any large task into a number of smaller ones
• Assign times and limits for scheduled tasks
• If a family member is the prime caregiver, be sure they have time for themselves
• Make sure tasks are clearly defined to avoid ambiguity and confusion

As you can imagine, creating a proper home healthcare room requires meticulous adherence to infection control measures and sterilization of any medical equipment. Also, measures should be taken to ensure any patient is safe and secure.

Items You Need for a Home Healthcare Room

Yes, creating an environment that is conducive to rest, recovery, and allowing for effective delivery of caretaking is important but having the right equipment on hand is doubly important. First and foremost, you want to create a home healthcare room that is safe for both patient and caregiver alike. This means sanitary items such as:

• Hand sanitizers
• Disposable latex/non-latex (to avoid latex allergies) gloves
• Antimicrobial Wipes
• Regular disinfection of any medical equipment
• Proper patient transfer equipment

By ensuring a clean and sanitary environment aids both the patient and caregiver and properly transferring a patient can prevent injury to both. Medical equipment you should have on hand depends upon the needs of each patient. Common equipment you may need can include:

1. Hospital Bed/Bedding: A hospital bed can help adjust the patient so that pressure points can be shifted and bedsores minimized or avoided. This can include side rails and an air mattress to alternate pressure points. Bedding, such as, bedpads can help reduce the need for daily laundry due to incontinence.
2. Wound Care Supplies: Skin breakdowns are the leading threat to anyone facing home healthcare. By avoiding breakdowns, the risk of infection is reduced and having the proper wound care supplies on hand can help any caregiver promote healing. Antibacterial or antimicrobial creams/lotions would always be in supply.
3. Mobility/Transfer Aids: Falls are the leading cause of hospitalization, especially in elderly patients. Using proper equipment such as patient lifts, transfer boards, and wheelchairs are a great place to start to safely move patients around.
4. Hygiene Supplies: Revisiting the need to have healthy skin, the use of hygiene products such as adult briefs/diapers, wipes, bedpads, or underpads. Shower/commode chairs are another great medical aid for home healthcare rooms. They double as showering and toileting equipment.
5. Respiratory Equipment: For patients that might suffer from sleep apnea or respiratory ailments like COPD or asthma, having the right equipment is crucial to avoiding a potential emergency. Having a nebulizer for respiratory ailments and CPAP machines is important for respiratory therapy and sleeping.
6. Testing Equipment: Everyday monitoring of vital signs is a basic healthcare requirement. Every caregiver should know how to use blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters, and thermometers to get everyday vitals. Be sure to show them how each piece of equipment works so there is no confusion over equipment.

Top Home Healthcare Essentials for a Safer Recovery Room

When to Seek Medical Attention

As with any medical care given at home, if something doesn’t seem “quite right” you should contact your physician with any questions. If you have any questions about setting up a room in your home for caring for a loved one contact your doctor to see if he could recommend an occupational or physical therapist who can visit your home and evaluate the space that you have chosen for a home healthcare room.

References:

1. Healthcare At Home - Bedroom
2. How Do You Begin Building A Home Hospital?
3. Top 10 Medical Equipment for Home Care Patients
4. Is The Patient Room of the Future Your Bedroom?
5. How to create the ideal care home room

Disclaimer: All content found on our website, including images, videos, infographics and text were created solely for informational purposes. Our content should never be used for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment of any medical conditions. Content shared on our websites is not meant to be used as a substitute for advice from a certified medical professional. Reliance on the information provided on our website as a basis for patient treatment is solely at your own risk. We urge all our customers to always consult a physician or a certified medical professional before trying or using a new medical product.