lity associated with home health care agencies.
Home health care agencies, typically, provide a combination of medical and social services (e.g., changing dressings, monitoring medications, bathing and dressing clients, changing bed linens, etc.). Also, these agencies provide some or all of the following: part-time skilled nursing care, physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, medical social services, and some medical supplies and equipment such as crutches, wheelchairs and walkers.
The difficulty with effective utilization of these agencies on the part of those providing services, Raffel and Raffel (1994) report, is that the agencies vary greatly both within and outside of different communities. First, these agencies operate under various names, have varying organizational titles, and offer differing services. Second, the agencies differ in terms of who is responsible for their operation; that is, some are independent, while others are hospital-operated or health depar
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