Madeline R. Sterling, MD, MPH, MS; Joanna Bryan Ringel, MPH; Barbara Riegel, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA; Parag Goyal, MD, MSc; Alicia I. Arbaje, MD, MPH, PhD, MPH; Kathryn H. Bowles, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI; Margaret V. McDonald, MSW; Lisa M. Kern, MD, MPH
Corresponding Author: Madeline R. Sterling, MD, MPH, MS; Weill Cornell Medicine.
Contact Email: mrs9012@med.cornell.edu
Section: Brief Report
Publication Date: TBD
BACKGROUND: Despite providing frequent care to heart failure (HF) patients, home health care workers’ (HHWs), which include home health aides and attendants, are generally considered neither part of the healthcare team nor the family, and their clinical observations are often overlooked. To better understand this workforces’ involvement in care, we quantified HHWs’ scope of interactions with clinicians, health systems, and family caregivers.
METHODS: Community-partnered cross-sectional survey of English and Spanish-speaking HHWs who cared for a HF patient in the last year in New York, NY. The survey included 6 open-ended questions about aspects of care coordination, alongside demographic and employment characteristics. Descriptive statistics were performed.
RESULTS: A total of 391 HHWs employed by 56 unique home care agencies completed the survey (response rate 60.3%). HHWs took HF patients to a median of 3 (IQR: 1, 6) doctor appointments in the last year with 21.9% of them taking patients to ≥ 7 doctor appointments. Nearly a quarter of HHWs reported that these appointments were in ≥ 3 different health systems. HHWs were supervised by a median of 2 (IQR 1, 2) different nurses at their agency and worked alongside a median of 2 (IQR 1, 3) different HHWs while caring for a HF patient. A third of HHWs organized care for their HF patient with ≥ 2 family caregivers.
CONCLUSIONS: HHWs’ scope of health-related interactions is large indicating that there may be novel opportunities to leverage HHWs’ experiences to improve healthcare delivery and patient care in HF.