Home-Based Nursing: International Scope & Standards of Practice

Introduction. The International Home Care Nurses Organization (IHCNO; www.ihcno.org)  and the American Nurses Association (ANA) have conducted a research study to give nurses who provide care for persons in their homes a voice in developing the new Home-Based Nursing: International Scope and Standards of Practice.

This project has reached a new phase. After using various methods to connect and contact home-based nurses around the world we have collected data from nurses from about 40 countries, which includes all the 6 WHO geographic regions of the world. Our participants also came from many different types of home-based nursing (HBN) models, which address the needs of different populations of patients throughout their life cycles.

We used 4 surveys to collect data about the status and scope of HBN in the participants’ countries and their opinions and vision of what the standards and competencies should be for high-quality HBN into the future. All the surveys have been completed, and the researchers are now in the process of analyzing the data, which will be used by a Task Force to actually develop the standards. The IHCNO is actually enhancing the quality of HBN around the world with this project!