We often get calls from clients looking for nursing care but after a conversation, we discover they are actually looking for personal support worker care, so what’s the difference between nursing care vs PSW care?
Let’s start with a scenario. Mary is 84 years old she is homebound, her adult daughter and son visit her on weekends, Mary’s vision is starting to decline, she recently had a fall and has an open wound on her leg and a sprained shoulder, she has been assigned physio exercises to increase her muscle tone and use of her shoulder. Mary needs help with changing her bedding and moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer when the clothes are wet. She also needs help carrying the clothes back upstairs from the basement laundry room. She needs help putting away groceries that her daughter orders for delivery to Mary’s house during the week. Mary is also a little lonely between her family visits and her family would appreciate someone checking in on her during the week.
Nursing care is needed for Mary’s wound care as this is not a PSW role, the rest of the duties can be done by a PSW. The cost is usually substantially less as nursing care is often 50-75% more than PSW care. PSW care involves the social side of a care visit, PSW shifts will likely be longer than a nurse visit as a nurse will come task focused where the PSW will have many chores and they will spend time getting to know Mary and discover if there are any other household chores Mary needs to be done.
Nursing visits usually do not involve household chores but are rather focused on the medical task of the visit, wound care, and medication management, PSWs will give medication reminders and PSWs can alert if a nursing visit is needed for an update to wound care.
PSWs are the responsible caregivers for also supporting Mary in the continuation of her physio exercises, PSW’s will encourage Mary to do them as instructed, this is not a nursing duty.
Please call AgePro to discuss your specific care needs
