2. Home care represents the best tradition in American health care. Home care agencies were started as public agencies to seek out the poor and the needy who otherwise would go without care. No one was turned away. This is still true for most of America's home care agencies.

3. Home care keeps families together. There is no more important social value. It is particularly important in times of illness.

4. Home care serves to keep the elderly in independence. None of us wants to be totally dependent and helpless. With some assistance, seniors can continue to function as viable members of society.

5. Home care prevents or postpones institutionalization. None of us wants to be placed in a nursing home unless this is the only place where we can obtain the 24-hour care that we need.

6. Home care promotes healing. There is scientific evidence that patients heal more quickly at home.

7. Home care is safer. For all of its lifesaving potential, statistics show that a hospital is a dangerous place. The risk of infection, for example, is high.

8. Home care allows a maximum amount of freedom for the individual. A hospital, of necessity, is a regimented, regulated environment. The same is true of a nursing home. Upon admission to either, an individual is required to surrender a significant portion of his rights in the name of common good

9. Home care is a personalized care; it is tailored to the needs of each individual.

10. Home care, by definition, involves the individual and the family in the care that is delivered. The patient and his family are taught to participate in their health care. They are taught how to get well and how to stay that way.

11. Home care reduces stress. Unlike most forms of health care, which can increase anxiety and stress, home care has the opposite effect.

12. Home care is the most effective form of health care.

13. Home care is the most efficient form of health care. By bringing health services home, the patient does not generate board and room expenses. Technology has now developed to the point where almost any service that is available in a hospital can be offered at home.

14. Home care is given by special people. By and large, employees of home care agencies look at their work not as a job or profession, but as a calling. Home care workers are highly trained and seem to share a certain reverence for life.

15. Home care is the only way to reach some people. Home care has its roots in the early 1900s when some method was needed to provide care for the flood of immigrants who populated our cities.

16. There is little fraud and abuse associated with home care.

17. Home care improves the quality of life. Home care helps not only add years to life, but life to years.

18. Home care is less expensive than other forms of care. It costs about one-tenth as much as hospitalization and one-fourth as much as a nursing home.

19. Home care extends life. People live longer and enjoy living.

20. Home care is the preferred form of care, even for individuals who are terminally ill. There is growing demand for hospice care, which is home care for individuals who are terminally ill.

REPRINTED from CARING Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 10.

For information on rates, terms of service and other matters pertaining to staffing, contact:

Lisa Clark, Administrative Director
CAREGIVERS HOME CARE & STAFFING

816 279-1010 or Toll-Free: 1 800 279-1013

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