Essential Skills and Knowledge for Home Nursing

Hi there ! I’m Mao who works for Home Nursing Station.

Have you ever known about essential skills and knowledge for Home Nursing in Japan ?

I will explain above in detailed.

Actually demands of Home Nursing is expected increasing year by year in Japan due to super aging society for future.

If you are thinking to join the Home Nursing in Japan, I hope this page is greatly helpful for you.

Hard to Work Real Home Nursing in Japan ?

Hard to Work for Home Nursing Station ?

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Essential Skills and Knowledge for Home Nursing

The skills and knowledge that visiting nurses should know in Japan at a least are as follows.

These are the minimum necessary knowledge as a visiting nurse in addition to the basic experience and skills as a nurse in Japan.

Vital check

Vital check is one of the basic skills of nurses.

This is a task that nurses working in hospitals do hundreds of times, even if they are not visiting nurses.

However, in the case of Home Nursing, the nurses need to bring the vital kit to the patient’s home and check it, we get nervous when we go to the patient’s home because of the eyes of their family and others even checking basic vital check.

On the other hand, if the nurses can’t do it with any problems at the hospital, senior nurse would help you instead.

I would like all nurses to be able to perform vital checks perfectly in any environment.

Disimpaction & Enema

Many of the patients who use Home Nursing are basically leading independent lives with the support of their families.

However, there are a certain number of patients who need disimpaction or enema, so it is an essential skill for Home Nursing.

In particular, bedridden patients with weak muscles often need support for defecation, so it is good to be able to perform disimpaction and enema.

Replacement of indwelling bladder catheter

Many patients for Home Nursing use an indwelling bladder catheter, so Visiting Nurse should be able to have a skill to replace the catheter.

Replacing an indwelling bladder catheter is a very careful task because there is a risk of damaging the urethra and urinary tract infection, so it is good to have some experience.

In Home Nursing, there are no seniors or superiors to help you in an emergency.

There are many things that have to be dealt with on the cases, so if you leave it unproperly, it may cause trouble for other people and manager.

Inserting drips

There are actually not many Home Nursing patients who use intravenous drips, but even so, it is a task that must be done once every few months, so you need better to be able to do it.

Some patients who cannot eat on their own are put on a drip to prevent dehydration.

I don’t have many times to insert drips in my case, so you may sometimes get nervous when you are required to do it.

Unlike at the hospital, care at a patient’s home can be very nerve-wracking at first, so it’s best to get used to work such as drips.

General hygiene care

Home Nursing also assists patients in bathing and rehabilitation.

We are not in a situation where nursing supplies such as diapers and pads are endless like hospitals, so we often use what we bring our own from the Home Nursing Station.

Be sure to be able to do cleanliness care when the many situations where you need to be careful not to make the house dirty, or give advice to your family.

Also, when visiting the patient’s home, the nurse is basically alone, so there is no support from anyone.

Keep in mind that it is often more physically demanding than working in a ward because you will be doing the lifting and moving of a physically challenged patient by yourself.

Carefully listen to the patient and family

I personally think this is the most difficult skill.

Nurses have many opportunities to “explain” to patients and their family, but on the other hand, there are surprisingly many nurses who are not good at “listening” to patients and their families.

There are two types of the word “hear” and “listen”.

It is said that “listening” is actually quite a difficult skill, such as empathizing with the other person’s story and showing understanding, and there are few people who can do it properly.

It seems that there are many nurses who only talk about themselves without listening to patients and their families, but it’s necessary to have the mental leeway to listen carefully to what the other person is saying.

Visiting Nurses Should Know Together

I will introduce the knowledge that Visiting Nurses should know together.

I will explain them one by one.

Knowledge of pressure ulcer progression

Pressure ulcers, also known as “Bedsores”, are reddened and swollen skin caused by poor blood flow in bedridden patients.

Visiting nurses should observe patients closely and provide necessary treatment for patients with pressure ulcers.

Basically, the details of treatment are decided based on the instructions from the doctor, but it is often the nurse who can observe the real situation of the patient.

Do not leave everything up to the doctor, and it will be very useful later if you study the knowledge necessary for treating pressure ulcers in advance.

Drug knowledge

Visiting nurses also play an important role in patient medication management.

It is useful to learn about the minimum knowledge about the medicines that the patient takes.

In particular, the nurses often receive questions about over-the-counter drugs from family members, so we cannot give vague answers there.

Patients are basically supposed to take only prescribed medicines, but sometimes I see cases where family members buy over-the-counter medicines and give them to patients.

It is not the nurse’s responsibility to take medicine without permission, but it is easier to be trusted if you cry so that you can easily explain “why it is not good” and “what kind of risk”.

Easy-to-understand explanations without using technical terms

I mentioned that it is important to “listen” to patients as an essential skill, but equally important is the knowledge to “explain in an easy-to-understand manner.”

For example, when explaining “Pressure Ulcers” to patients, we use the term “Bedsores” to make it easier to understand.

In order to explain so that anyone can understand, you have to know various words to replace difficult words with simple words.

There are already many words used in the medical industry, and there are many horizontal characters and abbreviations. so we have to understand even if ordinary people hear difficult terms, they cannot understand them.

Conclusion

I explained the nesseccary skills and knowledge that they need to know.
Finally, let me summarize.

I hope that there will be more Visiting Nurses in the future in Japan.

For that reason, I would appreciate it if you could know more about Home Nursing and have a interest.

If you are a student aiming to become a nurse or a nurse currently working in a hospital, please consider entering a Home Nursing Station for work.