Photo ID Cards and Home Health Care Workers

During my last visit to the hospital with my mother, each and every nurse and attendant showed me their picture identification card. Many went further by saying that anyone that is attempting to administer medicine or any kind of medical treatment must be wearing similar identification. It was a feeling of comfort for my mother as well as for myself.

Presently both of my parents live in a home beside ours and several medical personnel visit my parents to do some kind of therapy or to just check on their overall condition. On a regular basis, there seems to be a flow of home care staff that visits them at home. Occasionally, based on their physical condition, there are people visiting them on a daily basis and it’s nice as we get to know the attendants 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.

Now it can be a large expense for small home care organizations to add this as part of their overhead if they seek a solution through purchasing equipment; however, there are other solutions such as FullIdentity.com. This company provides both background checks and photo ID cards through an online service at a reasonable price. Larger companies can use a solution like this but it may be more cost effective to purchase their own equipment.

Background checks and photo ID cards should almost be mandatory in the home care industry, although as in many situations it doesn’t require government intervention if the industry takes care of the issue. It has always been a better thing when an industry regulates themselves without government imposing regulations that cost our tax dollars to enforce and also quickly become outdated.

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.

Author:

Being the founder of Virtual Tournament Director and http://www.FullIdentity.com, Allen Richardson has developed solutions for registration and identification cards for over seven years. Additionally, he has served as a consultant to Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway, Southwest Airlines and many other organizations.

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Additional Information and webpage by Paul Susic MA Licensed Psychologist Ph.D. Candidate