September 2019 - Memorial Health Careers

Home Is Where The Healing Begins.

September 29, 2019/in Nursing aislinn, care, clinical, culture, dawn, flexibility and autonomy, health, home, home health, memorial, memorial home, memorial home health, nurses, nursing, patient care, patients, team, working, working in home, working in home health /by jortega

Flexibility and Autonomy

For over 15 years, Dawn de la Vega has been a part of Memorial Healthcare System. Starting with direct patient care in a procedural area, Dawn then climbed the Clinical Ladder and advanced to a Manager position when she earned her Master’s degree. Now as Director of Nursing for Memorial Home Health, Dawn is building a compassionate, high-caliber clinical team!

The flexibility and autonomy that Home Health offers are what drew Dawn, and nurses like Aislinn Woody, to the job. Aislinn began working at Memorial in March as a Home Health RN. Raising a six-year-old child with a husband who’s deployed nearly half the year isn’t an easy task, so the flexibility Home Health affords Aislinn has been a blessing. Not only is she able to better care for her patients and her own family; Aislinn can now focus on her pursuing her education and earning her doctorate in nursing.

Working inside of patient’s homes gives Aislinn a lot of autonomy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not supported by their team. “You can go a week without setting foot in the office, but you’re still in a supportive environment. My clinical manager is always available to communicate,” says Aislinn. It’s this flow of communication that allows Home Health Nurses at Memorial to go above and beyond. By facilitating interdisciplinary communication, we’re able to use a holistic approach to improve a patient’s recovery.

Custom Tailored Nursing

Many nurses find working in Home Health takes some adjustment, especially if they’ve transitioned from an acute care clinical setting. As a home health nurse, you must be on top of your game, be able to think on your feet, and really understand the art of nursing. “The idea of going into home health was a little nerve-wracking at first. You have a lot of resources and support in the hospital.” Aislinn continued, “Home Health requires a nurse to shift in their thinking. It’s more about teaching patients to manage their health or illness at home, independently. You really want to empower patients to do it for themselves.”

While many nurses may find that adjustment challenging at first, the genuine gratitude they receive from their patients is just as rewarding. “Working in Home Health was one of my favorite jobs because you’re in the patient’s environment. Plus, I rarely came across a patient who didn’t appreciate or express their gratitude for every single visit,” says Dawn. “You’re working to help them be as healthy as they can be in the environment they want to be in.” Aislinn added, “Seeing patients succeed and watching them take ownership of their health is special. It’s something you can’t see in other settings. Recently, I took care of a woman in her 90s, who was very close to her family. They wanted to care for her, so I had to teach them how to administer an IV, remove a catheter, etc. It was wonderful seeing them come together and care for her so she could remain in a setting where she was comfortable.”

Our Culture. Your Career.

The love of a hands-on approach to in-home patient care isn’t the only thing that attracted Dawn and Aislinn to Memorial. Our culture played a significant role in their decision as well. “I was surprised by Memorial’s culture and ongoing commitment to training. As a leader, you know that when you take care of your employees, they will take care of your patients.” Dawn continues, “Also, the visibility and the human factor associated with our Executive Leadership. They’ve always been visionary, they’ve always done well by the organization, but their egos don’t reflect it. They’re just genuine.”

Another aspect of our culture that Aislinn found attractive was Memorial’s commitment to the community: “I believe in the not-for-profit healthcare model. So it was nice to find an organization like that in a place dominated by for-profit healthcare systems. They fill the niche of being a part of the community they serve.”

Finally, Dawn has some excellent advice for any nurse looking to join the Memorial Home Health team. She says, “Not only seek us out because of the excellent organization we are but bring your own ideas too. That’s what helps us become even better. We can always learn from energetic, motivated people.”

Learn more about #teamMHSflrodia and become a part of our fantastic Home Health Nursing Team.

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Educating Patients

September 29, 2019/in Allied Health doctorate, health, helping, home, home health, memorial, nafee, patients, patients in their home, physical, physical therapy, rehabilitation, teaching, team, therapy, together, tuition reimbursement, unique, work, working /by jortega

Making the Environment Work for You

Since 2002, Nafee Khan has called Memorial Healthcare System home. Starting in Acute Care Inpatient Rehabilitation, Nafee is now a Home Health PT with a doctorate in Physical Therapy. For the past eight years, Nafee has visited countless patients in their home, helping them recover and rehabilitate themselves from illness and injury. “Home Health is very unique versus other settings I’ve worked in. It’s not only about educating patients and teaching them about Physical Therapy. It’s about teaching them how to utilize whatever they have in the home to assist in their recovery,” says Nafee. “Without traditional rehab equipment, it’s by far the hardest and yet the most rewarding setting to work in.”

Working with patients in their home means you will find yourself in a variety of environments with each offering their own unique sets of challenges and approaches to rehabilitation. “You can go from a million-dollar estate with ample room to a mobile home that you can barely walk through. Yet, you still need to provide the same level of PT for both patients. That’s where the challenge lies,” says Nafee. “But you’re not alone,” she continues “We work very closely with the occupational and speech therapy teams as well as the nursing team and the home health aides. We’re in constant communication with one another discussing what the patient needs and how to meet that need. Together, we have great outcomes working together.”

The support Memorial offers go beyond the collaborative culture we’ve cultivated over the years. As an organization, we want you to excel in both your career and in your personal life. One way in which we do that is through tuition reimbursement. By assisting you in going back to school to gain more knowledge and skills, we’re helping build a more capable team. “Memorial’s tuition reimbursement allowed me to go back to school and pay for my Doctorate degree. A typical Home Health agency will not give you the funding to do that,” exclaims Nafee.

Learn more about #teamMHSflorida’s Home Health Physical Therapy and what career opportunities await you.

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Healing in the Home

September 29, 2019/in Featured care, challenging, environment, find, full, health, healthcare, healthcare system, help, helping, home health, job, memorial, memorial healthcare, memorial healthcare system, patient, patients, recovery, system, therapists /by jortega

Home Health: Taking Recovery to the People

As treatments have improved over the past few years, the need for Home Health practitioners has increased. Patients are now being discharged sooner than ever before, and they need passionate, dedicated, and determined healthcare professionals to help them on their journey to recovery.

Take our Home Health Nurses, for instance. Their job is to travel to a patients’ home to care for patients while educating them on how to better care for themselves. This can be challenging as no two patients’ living situations are the same, but the quality of care they receive needs to be. It takes someone who isn’t afraid to think outside the box to do this job, but the reward of watching your patients take their health into their own hands makes it all worthwhile. And while it may seem these incredible clinicians are alone, they are not. They enjoy the full support of their Home Health teammates – the administrative staff, therapists, aides – and the entire Memorial Healthcare System.

Meanwhile, our Home Health Physical Therapists face similar challenges and rewards. Here they have to teach their patients how to utilize their environment to facilitate recovery and rehabilitation. Home Health Rehab can be challenging as patients and therapists lack the standard equipment one might find in a clinical setting, so they must make due with what they can find in a patient’s home. In this job, thinking on your feet is critical in helping your patient get back to their full potential.

At Memorial Healthcare System, our Home Health team is committed to improving patient outcomes by helping them recover in the environment they feel most comfortable…their home. Discover how #teamMHSflorida can help you take your career to a whole new level by visiting our career page today.