Allen Richardson

Home Care Industry and Photo ID Cards

Many home care providers don't wear identification badges as nurses do in hospitals.

The last time my mother stayed at the hospital every attendant and nurse showed my mother their photo identification card.  Several continued by saying not to allow anyone who wasn’t wearing an ID badge to administer medical treatment or medicine.  For my mother and I, it was a feeling of comfort.

Today both of my parents live in a house just behind ours and at least four or five medical attendants visit my parents for something or another from therapy to just checking their condition.  There seems to be a flow of home care staff visiting them on a regular basis.  On occasion, depending on their condition they have daily medical visitors and it’s nice as we get to know the staff personally.

It’s definitely surprising to see that most of them don’t wear any kind of identification card as part of their uniform.  Both my parents and I have come to accept them at their word as to who they are and why they are there.  Isn’t that a shocking contrast to a stay at the hospital?

Now I am not trying to slam the quickly growing home care business. It has been an invaluable solution for my folks and has prevented them from taking many of their trips to the doctors and has prevented several stays at the hospital.

What I am saying though is that the home care industry should start working under the same standard as the hospitals.  Simply by wearing a photo ID card they would greatly add to the comfort level of their customers.

It can be expensive for a small home care company to add ID card printing equipment to their overhead; however, there are other solutions available such as FullIdentity.com.  This organization provides both identification cards and instant background checks through an online service at a reasonable rate.  Larger organizations can use a similar solution, but it may be more costly than purchasing their own equipment.

Identification cards and background screening should almost be mandatory in this industry, but as in many things that don’t require government intervention if care is taken by the industry.  It’s always a better thing when an industry regulates itself without the government imposing standards that can quickly become dated and cost our tax dollars to enforce.

There were more than 228,000 home care organizations in the US in 2007.  The industry has been climbing at a fast pace with our aging society and recently passed $54 Billion a year.  As a cost effective alternative to nursing homes and extended hospital stays the home care industry is here to stay.  As time progresses, hopefully the home care industry will begin to follow the standards that have been set by the hospital administrators as it applies to identification cards.

Article Tags: Home Care Industry, Home Care, Care Industry

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