What is a Health Care Assistant ?

A health care assistant is someone that helps the individual or nurses in a healthcare facility or at home. In different situations they may have changing roles for example a professional healthcare assistant may not do what he does in a home, at a nursing home. They work right with the individuals needing care and assist them with their personal care such as feeding them, helping them shower and dressing up.

They also take care of an individual's surroundings, make their beds, check their blood pressure, blood sugar, transport them from one place to another, talk to them, and help them with daily activities. They work under the supervision of medical professionals, since they themselves are not doctors or nurses.

As mentioned earlier, they work in a variety of different situations that include nursing homes, home health agencies, hospitals, personal care centers or individuals’ private homes.

Also Read: What does a Health Care Assistant do in residential home care?

Are Nurses and Health Care Assistants the same thing?

Well, the short answer is no. Nurses and healthcare assistants are not the same but, when you’re working as an HCA after a certain level, you can apply for a degree program as well and become a nurse. In fact, getting into a nursing school would be easier for someone working in health care as opposed to others.

How is an HCA different from a Nurse?

Well you see, nurses are more of medical attendants. They are responsible for the wellbeing of a patient with a medical condition. They administer injections and medical attention to the patient. Basically involved in medical care. Whereas an HCA is more into taking care of a person with or without a health condition, for example, old people that have no one to take care of them.

What is expected of a health care assistant?

HCAs need to exhibit the following qualities:

Good communication skills so that the person that needs taking care of can easily communicate with them their needs.

An approachable and easy going nature so that the caretaking is done properly. If a person is rude or uptight, the client would not open up to them about their needs and hence the whole idea of care would be lost.

The openness of working with people of all ages. Most of the time when we picture an HCA taking care of someone, we picture them with an old person. However, their job is not limited to just one age group. They might have to take care of a kid, an adult or even a teen. So flexibility is a must.

They need to have a considerate nature so that people they’re working with, feel comfortable with them around and not feel restricted in their presence.

HCA needs to be a good listener so that they can pay attention to what their person feels or needs. Most of the time they work with old people who have no one to talk to and just pouring their heart out can help them recover from so many things.

Sensitivity is also a must have in an HCA so they can sense whenever a person is going through something that they can not communicate and might need medical help with.

Above all, caring nature is a must because they are there to take care of a person.

All of these traits are needed in one person to be a good HCA that delivers what he promises to and it is important to hire someone who is actually right for the job.