Care At Home, With A Focus On Safety And Human Interaction

Man-Hong Wan, Rn

NYC Health + Hospitals/ Community Care

My Role: Like most of our home care nurses, we're constantly assessing and screening patients by phone for COVID-19, while still making house visits. If we prepare to visit a home, we take our own temperature to make sure we don't have a fever. We need to protect our patients in every way we can.

Impact of COVID-19: I find myself spending more time with patients because they are lonelier since no one else can visit. They need human interaction. Without that, it affects their emotional health and mental state. This situation is stressing them out, and stress is a contributing factor to so many poor health outcomes. As nurses, we have an obligation to do what we can to focus on their mental and physical well-being.

Why I'm On The Frontlines: I choose this profession and it's my obligation to be out there to do what I can to protect our community.

I always remind myself that our patients didn't choose to be sick. Whatever I can do for one extra person or one extra case helps.