How to Engage Patients with Care at Home (According to Our Nurses)

Care-at-home programs offer a superior patient experience to facility-based care. Patients are safer, more comfortable, and more empowered to participate and collaborate in their care. Clinical outcomes within the home are often better as well, with patients less likely to experience falls, infections, and readmissions. 

But care at home doesn’t work unless patients adhere to and engage with their care plan. 

The experienced and compassionate nurses in our Clinical Command Center excel at keeping patients engaged and comfortable from afar. Recently, this excellent team helped a client raise their patient adherence rate by nearly 30 percent, while managing a quadrupled daily patient census. 

Here are four tips from our Clinical Command Center for engaging patients with care at home. 

Insights from our Clinical Command Center Nurses

“When engaging patients at home, I find that humor (when appropriate and especially once you have built rapport with the patient on previous calls) goes a long way in establishing a trusting relationship. Also, giving a patient space to speak about non-clinical things (e.g., their granddaughter’s 9th birthday!) helps humanize the healthcare experience while giving you insight to things that may motivate a patient to engage in their own care.” – Hali Richardson, BSN, RN, PCCN  

“When working with patients, we work to build a bond with the patients we support. When I engage patients, I always make sure I ask them how their day is going, and I find great joy that patients will tell me about what is going well throughout their day, whether it be that they went to church that morning, saw a family member, or got together with a friend. Before I end my calls with each patient, I make sure to ask if there is anything else I can do for them and that I hope they have a wonderful rest of their day.” – Rebekah Shellberg, RN, BSN

“Remote care is a relatively foreign concept to many as they begin their experience with us. But in very short order, patients and their families find great comfort in knowing that there is a team of individuals watching and looking out for their wellbeing around the clock. Our team is fortunate to have frequent opportunities to connect and truly relate to these individuals, not only through assessing their immediate healthcare needs, but also in conversations shared about their daily lives. When such a rapport is built between the patients and nurse team, everyone reaps the rewards.” – Addie Eversmeyer-Marquez, RN, BSN

“Not having direct physical contact with patients may seem like a barrier at first. But through compassion, empathy, open communication, and protecting the patient’s autonomy, we have been able to create a trusting, safe environment to help patients heal. The comfort of being cared for at home, the bonds and relationships built through speaking to and assessing the patients, and increasing patient safety are just some of the benefits of care at home. The patients are engaged in their care and have expressed a newfound comfort in knowing that someone is always looking out for them and their overall well being.”  – Lisa Ruchlewicz, BSN, RN