Defining home health care nursing: implications for continuing nursing education

The purpose of this qualitative interpretivist study was to analyze and articulate the characteristics of nursing practice in the home health care context. Researchers sought to describe expert home health care nursing practice and how it developed. Twenty-one nurses, at various stages of practice development, were asked to write three clinical narratives describing their home health care practice. Data were analyzed to elicit themes and characteristics of nursing practice in the home health care context. Findings indicate that in the context of home health care, expert nursing practice develops along a continuum, until nurses can integrate physiological data with environmental and family data to provide seamless, intuitive, and highly complex nursing care. The results of this research can assist continuing education and staff development providers as they develop educational programs designed to facilitate professional development of new graduates and newly employed nurses in home health care.