Home health care--providing a missing link

1. If nurses are to provide the continuity of care that helps patients at home achieve expected patient outcomes, nurses must diagnose actual and potential health problems and design a plan of care. 2. Before patient outcomes can be identified, nurses must first recognize, assess, and describe the patient's defining characteristics. 3. The study found that nurses use a limited range of nursing diagnoses and incompletely document the care they give. 4. Results of the study indicated that nurses provide continuity of care between the hospital and home; there is also a need for home-based health care to provide support for elderly caregivers whose health is less than good.