With November 1st so close at hand, our home care companions
and coordinators are anxious to finally welcome the return of National Home Care and Hospice Month. It’s an annual observance that reminds us just how far our society has come in regards to carrying for the ailing, injured, elderly and dying. One way to get a better understanding of that massive shift is to read books like Karen Buhler-Wilkerson’s, No Place Like Home: A History of Nursing and Home Care in the U.S. and A.E. Benjamin’s 1993 Millbank Quarterly article, An Historical Perspective on Home Care Policy.

They help explain how at one time, home care was nothing more than neighborhood midwives and local doctors making house calls when needed. But then things happened that would forever change the course of home care companion history. Both authors’ cite the arrival of our country’s Medicare program and Balanced Budget Act of 1997 as perhaps being the most pivotal moments. Together, they helped make it possible for people to receive highly skilled, long-term care at home instead of in an impersonal institution. So many individuals and their families seized those opportunities in droves.

Of course since the 1990s, home care options have increasingly gotten better. The improvements have come about thanks in part to advances in disease research and healthcare technology. For example, there are now CPAP, IV therapy equipment and dialysis machines that may be safely used in the home. Furthermore, the results of diagnostic tests completed by home companions can now be sent to home care coordinators and others in real time.

To learn more about how far home care has come since the start of the 21st century, please contact us today. Our home care coordinators would love to show you and your family firsthand what types of advancements have been made.