A Visiting Nurse Association is something of a misnomer. VNAs are more like agencies or service bureaus or actual facilities that provide long term care to the elderly, infirm and terminally ill. For more than 100 years, Visiting Nurse Associations have been providing home health care to the communities they serve. The organizations, their staff and contract employees provide comprehensive home health care. According to the national organization Visiting Nurse Associations of America VNAs care for nearly 10 million people annually.
Visiting Nurses Associations have a long history, having sprung up in this country in the 1800s as non-profit organizations providing support to elderly adults and neglected children in isolated communities. Today many of them retain their community-based nature – and also, for many, non-profit status. The larger ones serve expansive geographic areas.
A Typical Visiting Nurse Association’s Services
As an example, the Visiting Nurse Association of Texas provides services to twenty three counties. The Association provides several types of support to a number of different populations:
Home Health Care
In home care for people undergoing lengthy recoveries from illness or injury
Hospice
Support for the dying. This is in-home service including medical equipment and nursing support
Maternal and Children’s Services
This in-home counseling includes maternal-infant care; physical, occupational and speech therapies and medical social work to manage family and child problems
Eldercare
Transportation and in home physical duties for the elderly and frail
Meals on Wheels
With volunteer support, delivering meals to homebound elderly, disabled and ill people
Alzheimer’s and Homecare Services
Dressing, bathing, cooking and light housekeeping for Alzheimer victims
VNA Wellness Program
Onsite clinics that deliver immunizations, cholesterol checks, blood pressure checks, TB screening, etc. Offered to corporations and other organizations
Rehabilitation Services
In home treatment for physical, occupational and speech therapy; for neurological or orthopedic rehabilitation treatment
Visiting Nurses Associations and Managed Healthcare
Many of the VNAs in this country have been in operation for decades. As shown in the example above, many of them have expanded their services to include health education and therapeutic services. The original Visiting Nurses Associations were established merely to bring sorely needed aid to the afflicted.
Most of the services that are listed by the Texas VNA are paid for by Medicare, by a state public health program or by private insurance. The organization makes a concerted attempt to keep any necessary fees low. They actively solicit volunteers and donations. Not all VNAs limit their services to in-home delivery. A number of them have built and operate hospice facilities that are available to residents within the geographic area that they service.
Other examples of expanded home health care include the neonatal program instituted by the VNA of Ohio. That organization also has equipped itself and offers an in-home monitoring service that involves remote electronic devices relaying vital signs, heart rhythms and other critical data. Here is an example of technology that takes another element of medical care out of the hospital or doctor’s office and plants it in the home.
