• Madeline R Sterling, Joanna Bryan Ringel, Barbara Riegel, Parag Goyal, Alicia I Arbaje, Kathryn H Bowles, Margaret V McDonald, and Lisa M Kern.
• From the Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY (MRS, JBR, PG, LMK); University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia (BR, KHB); Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD (AIA); Center for Home Care Policy & Research at VNS Health, New York, NY (KHB, MVM). mrs9012@med.cornell.edu.
• J Am Board Fam Med. 2023 Apr 3; 36 (2): 369375369-375.

BackgroundDespite providing frequent care to heart failure (HF) patients, home health care workers (HHWs) are generally considered neither part of the health care team nor the family, and their clinical observations are often overlooked. To better understand this workforce's involvement in care, we quantified HHWs' scope of interactions with clinicians, health systems, and family caregivers.MethodsCommunity-partnered cross-sectional survey of English- and Spanish-speaking HHWs who cared for a HF patient in the last year. The survey included 6 open-ended questions about aspects of care coordination, alongside demographic and employment characteristics. Descriptive statistics were performed.ResultsThree hundred ninety-one HHWs employed by 56 unique home care agencies completed the survey. HHWs took HF patients to a median of 3 doctor appointments in the last year with 21.9% of them taking patients to ≥ 7 doctor appointments. Nearly a quarter of HHWs reported that these appointments were in ≥ 3 different health systems. A third of HHWs organized care for their HF patient with ≥ 2 family caregivers.ConclusionsHHWs' scope of health-related interactions is large, indicating that there may be novel opportunities to leverage HHWs' experiences to improve health care delivery and patient care in HF.© Copyright by the American Board of Family Medicine.

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