Solutions at Home®
HOME HEALTH AIDES
Our home health aides offer New York City’s older adults personalized care and professional support from the comfort of their own home.
What is a home health aide?
A home health aide (HHA) is a trained healthcare professional, licensed by the New York State Department of Health, to provide compassionate, hands-on assistance with daily living activities for older adults and those recovering from illness, injury, or surgery. HHAs help individuals maintain their independence while receiving care in the comfort and familiarity of their own home.
Responsibilities of a Home Health Aide
At The New Jewish Home, our home health aides are more than caregivers; they’re trusted companions empowering aging adults across New York City’s five boroughs.
Their responsibilities may include:
- Assisting with bathing, dressing, and grooming
- Helping with mobility and transfers
- Arranging doctor’s visits and other appointments
- Monitoring vital signs and reporting changes in condition
- Preparing meals and supporting nutrition plans
- Light housekeeping and organizing
- Providing medication reminders
- Offering companionship and emotional support
Registered nurses supervise all aides who follow personalized care plans tailored to each client’s unique needs.
Services Provided by Home Health Aides
Our home health aides (HHAs) work as part of an interdisciplinary team that may include nurses, therapists, and social workers, ensuring comprehensive care at home. Services can be tailored to support short-term recovery or ongoing needs, including:
- Post-hospital or post-surgical care
- Chronic disease management
- Memory care support for individuals with Alzheimer’s or dementia
- Assistance with mobility, including fall prevention
- Support with daily routines and rehabilitation exercises
If you need a few hours of help each day or even more frequent support, our HHAs are ready to provide compassionate, dependable, and safe care.
Why Families Trust The New Jewish Home for Home Health Care
With more than 170 years of experience caring for New Yorkers, The New Jewish Home understands what it takes to deliver exceptional home-based care. Our home health aides are certified, thoroughly screened, and trained to provide culturally sensitive and age-appropriate care. Our Solutions At Home® program is a licensed home care agency, with every care plan created and overseen by clinical professionals. Our New York City-based team offers consistent communication, family support, and flexible scheduling, making it easier to get your loved one the help they need without disrupting daily life.
In addition to clinical expertise, our care is infused with the thoughtful touches of our signature hospitality program, offering support that helps clients feel comfortable, heard, and valued throughout their care journey.
Home Health Tips for Managing Specific Medical Conditions
Our HHAs are trained to recognize the everyday needs of individuals with a wide range of medical conditions. Here are a few ways they help manage care at home:
- Diabetes: Monitoring blood sugar levels, supporting healthy meal planning, and recognizing early signs of hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia.
- Heart disease: Encouraging low-sodium diets, helping with medication adherence, and assisting with safe physical activity as prescribed.
- Dementia and Alzheimer’s: Offering gentle reminders, supportive routines, minimizing confusion, and creating calm, structured environments.
- Arthritis and mobility challenges: Assisting with movement, managing pain through comfort measures, and ensuring fall prevention.
The goal is always to support physical health, emotional well-being, and the ability to live as independently as possible.
Home Health Aide FAQs
What resources can help me care for my parent or loved one?
Solutions at Home is committed not only to providing services, but also to supporting caregivers and family members of seniors. We offer many options, from resources and links to topical information and tip sheets. We highly encourage using an emergency check-list.
How can I get help for my parents or loved ones?
Call Solutions at Home at 646-293-3340 where one of our experts will listen to your concerns and point you in the direction of the right services within our organization. Our experts will help guide you through the services you might need and help you set up appointments to help you make the right choices about those you care for.
How Do I Care For My Parent or Loved One With a Cognitive Disorder?
Caring for Adults with Cognitive Impairments
There are special caregiving challenges when a senior has slight physical ailments, but is cognitively impaired. Cognitive impairments can be completely different from patient to patient.
Some typical symptoms that caregivers can find frustrating include:
- communication problems,
- aggressive or impulsive behavior
- paranoia
- memory issues
- poor judgment
- wandering
Many of these symptoms may require 24-hour supervision. Some people develop behavioral problems early on, and others can go through their entire illness with only minor incidents.
Eight Tips for Caring for Adults with Cognitive Impairments
It can be daunting to care for an adult who suffers from cognitive impairment.
- Remember to be patient
- Anticipate the ups and downs
- Be compassionate
- Keep your sense of humor alive
- Remember who your loved one was prior to the impairment, and that it is the disease, and not the person, causing the behavior.
- Reminiscing can be therapeutic for both the senior and caregiver, as is singing old songs.
- When communicating, keep your language simple and ask one question at a time. Be patient waiting for responses. Even for the healthy older adult, processing information and organizing thoughts takes a bit longer.
- Medical and social adult day programs can be very helpful in engaging the cognitively impaired senior, offering programs and services to maximize her/his functional abilities.
When is it time to look for a nursing home?
Many seniors transfer to a nursing home after a hospital stay. For others, the need stems from a more gradual decline in health. Today, nursing homes are generally for people who need skilled nursing and 24-hour a day monitoring. Another option, geriatric care coordination, can be just what is needed when care needs overwhelm family caregivers, and can mitigate the need to relocate a senior to a nursing home. When is it time to consider moving to a nursing home? Here are six signs that it is time to consider nursing home care.
- A senior is homebound.
- Living at home is no longer safe for the senior.
- The level of health care and assistance needed is increasing and becoming difficult to provide in the home.
- A senior needs close monitoring because of declining health.
- Other options are exhausted. For example, home care is no longer sufficient and other community based programs do not meet your needs.
- Resources are exhausted (as nursing homes are covered by Medicaid)
In these cases, the medical and social facilities found in nursing homes may well offer the opportunity for the senior to enjoy a better quality of life.
It is always wise to have a complete work-up at either an in- or out-patient geriatric assessment facility, typically sponsored by a hospital and a clinic. The PRI and Screen which is used to determine placement appropriateness can be conducted at home. In fact, it is something that some GCMs can do if they have been certified. The better a caregiver understands the scope of a senior’s decline and its likely trajectory, the greater the likelihood that they will choose a safe, even empowering, fit for the senior.
Here’s more information about nursing homes in Manhattan, Westchester and the Bronx from The New Jewish Home.
Five Factors to Consider When Choosing a Nursing Home
- Consider timing: Most nursing home admissions occur after an unplanned hospitalization. You’ll likely get a list of nursing home choices. You don’t have to take the first available opening, but try to find out how much time you have before a decision will need to be made.
- Organize finances: Organize the finances associated with the possible move, including income, savings, assets, health insurance and long term care insurance, if there is a relevant care policy in place. Speak with all the family members who might play a role.
- Think about medical or special needs: Alzheimer’s, low vision, Parkinson’s, Dementia, and other health conditions may require special accommodations. Talk to your medical provider or our GCM about special needs and screen the homes you are considering for their ability to meet these special accommodations.
- Remember, Location is key: A nursing home as close as possible to the most visitors, including family members and friends, is ideal.
- Consider individual wants and needs: The preferences and background of the person who will be living in the nursing home is an important consideration. What does he or she want and need? What features will contribute to the overall quality of life?
Is it safe to have strangers in the home providing care?
What goes on behind closed doors is an understandable concern, especially if the senior has some cognitive loss or feels dependent on the homecare worker. Home health aides available through Solutions at Home are certified, bonded and licensed, and supervised by nurses. Home health aides go through a rigorous application process including reference and background review, including criminal record checks. As employees of The New Jewish Home, Solutions at Home home health aides receive ongoing in-service training to keep their skills up-to-date with industry practices.
What does a Home Health Aide do?
Solutions at Home’s Home Health Aides provide senior care at home by assisting with eating, dressing, oral hygiene, bathing, colostomies, medication reminders, etc. They may also provide homemaker services, such as light cleaning, meal preparation, laundry, and escorting seniors to appointments and activities.
What’s the difference between Solutions at Home and hiring a home health aide myself?
The package of a la carte services available through Solutions at Home makes it easy for you to find someone to help your parent or loved one stay home and live independently. We provide and supervise licensed, bonded, experienced certified home health aides who can support a full range of senior needs, from providing personal care (i.e. bathing, feeding) to household chores to medical support and overnight supervision.
If you decide to hire a home health aide on your own, be prepared to interview and manage that person, including all the paperwork required of employers.
You’ll want to make sure that person is reputable and dependable. You’ll want to authenticate certifications and licenses, check references, and conduct a background check. Because this person will be your employee, you’ll need to negotiate a salary, need to ensure minimum wage is met, maintain documents, and file local and federal forms. You’ll also need to develop a vacation and sick time policy and arrange for fill-in care. Even if the aide comes well-recommended, they may not be certified or bonded.
The Mayo Clinic offers this guide to selecting home health services
Interested in Home Health Aide services?
Please do not submit job/work inquiries through this form. If you are interested in contacting Solutions at Home® for employment opportunities, please check our job listings page.
Call 646-293-3340
To talk to a home care specialist.
Job and Employment Opportunities
If you are looking for senior home care positions please use our employment resource below:
