Home Health Care

Abstract

While many undergraduate nursing curricula put a premium on educating students to think and behave critically, fewer programs recognize the value of home health care in developing these skills. Student-nurses who are consistently challenged to think critically develop behaviors that positively affect patient health outcomes. Home health care is an ideal clinical setting to develop the type of thinking necessary to meet some of the nation’s greatest health challenges, including an aging population and patients discharged from acute care quicker and sicker. Integration of the home health care clinical experience is adaptable to all types of nursing programs and results in students demonstrating new ways of thinking and in their personal and professional growth.