Top 12 Home Health Nurse Skills to Put on Your Resume
Navigating the crowded world of home health nursing takes more than heart. It takes skills that travel well, hold up under pressure, and tell your story clearly on a resume. Spotlight the right strengths, and you don’t just get noticed—you get called.
Home Health Nurse Skills
- Wound Care
- Patient Assessment
- Medication Administration
- Chronic Disease Management
- Palliative Care
- Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic
- IV Therapy
- Telehealth Proficiency
- CPR Certified
- Patient Education
- Multitasking
- Time Management
1. Wound Care
Wound care in the home means careful assessment, meticulous cleansing, smart dressing selection, and pain control—with each step tailored to the person, the setting, and the wound’s stage of healing.
Why It's Important
Done well, wound care prevents infection, speeds healing, lowers complications, and eases discomfort. That’s quality of life, right there at the kitchen table or bedside.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
Sharpen the basics, then layer nuance:
Assess with consistency: Measure, stage, and document at each visit. Track odor, exudate, tissue type, and periwound skin. Photos (per policy) help show trajectory.
Keep it clean: Hand hygiene, aseptic technique, and a tidy field. Protect the site; protect the patient.
Match dressing to need: Think moisture balance, exudate control, and protection. Moist wound healing remains a strong principle.
Teach what matters: Red flags (increasing pain, warmth, spreading redness, fever). Clear steps for changing dressings safely between visits.
Fuel healing: Encourage protein, hydration, and micronutrients (A, C, zinc) when appropriate and aligned with the care plan.
Adapt quickly: Reassess and update the plan when progress stalls or new risks pop up.
Small, steady improvements add up. Wounds tell a story; your notes should capture it.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
2. Patient Assessment
Home visits call for a full scan: vitals, symptoms, function, meds, safety risks, caregiver capacity, and the home environment. You’re building a 360-degree picture in minutes.
Why It's Important
Accurate assessment steers the entire plan—interventions, teaching points, follow-up timing, and when to escalate. Miss less, help more.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Standardize your flow: Use a reliable head-to-toe pattern so nothing slips through.
Listen deeply: Open-ended questions. Silence that invites honesty. Clarify and reflect back.
Scan the home: Hazards, food access, med storage, lighting, stairs, pets—real life matters.
Leverage your EHR: Pre-visit chart reviews; update problems, meds, and allergies in real time.
Be culturally responsive: Ask about preferences, beliefs, and language needs. Tailor your approach.
Think holistically: Pain, mood, sleep, social support, cognition, transportation—symptoms don’t live alone.
With practice, your assessments get faster and sharper—like a camera that finally nails focus.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
3. Medication Administration
At home, you verify the right patient, medication, dose, route, time, and documentation—and teach the why behind it. Monitoring for effects and side effects is part of the job, every visit.
Why It's Important
Safe administration prevents errors, keeps symptoms controlled, and protects patients from harm. Reliability builds trust.
How to Improve Medication Administration Skills
Double-check with intention: High-alert meds, look-alike/sound-alike names, and new orders get extra scrutiny.
Use teach-back: Have patients or caregivers explain dosing and timing in their own words. Gaps become visible fast.
Simplify regimens: Align dosing schedules, consider pill organizers, and clarify which meds are time-critical.
Keep a clean med list: Reconcile at each visit. Remove discontinued items from the home if allowed. Watch for interactions and duplications.
Document on the spot: Real-time charting reduces errors and improves continuity across the team.
Watch and respond: Side effects, orthostasis, new confusion—catch early, escalate when needed.
Precision today saves headaches tomorrow.
How to Display Medication Administration Skills on Your Resume
4. Chronic Disease Management
Ongoing conditions need steady hands. You monitor symptoms, adjust plans, coach self-management, and keep the circle of care connected—right where the patient lives.
Why It's Important
Good disease management reduces hospitalizations, prevents complications, and helps patients live the way they want—fewer crises, more control.
How to Improve Chronic Disease Management Skills
Set practical goals: Co-create small, realistic targets (blood sugar ranges, daily weights, activity minutes) and celebrate wins.
Build routines: Daily logs, symptom trackers, and easy med schedules keep momentum going.
Use remote monitoring when available: BP cuffs, scales, pulse oximeters—data guides earlier interventions.
Coach problem-solving: What to do when numbers drift, when symptoms flare, when plans change.
Coordinate relentlessly: Communicate changes with primary care, specialists, and pharmacy. Close loops.
Plan for setbacks: Action plans for sick days, missed doses, or equipment issues reduce panic and ED visits.
Consistency beats intensity. Keep it sustainable.
How to Display Chronic Disease Management Skills on Your Resume
5. Palliative Care
Palliative care centers on relief—symptoms, stress, and the heavy stuff no one wants to carry alone. In home care, it’s personal, flexible, and deeply human.
Why It's Important
Comfort, dignity, and alignment with the patient’s goals. Families feel supported, patients feel seen, and care becomes kinder.
How to Improve Palliative Care Skills
Lead with curiosity and compassion: Explore values, hopes, and worries. Let patients define what matters most.
Master symptom control: Pain, dyspnea, nausea, anxiety, constipation—anticipate and preempt when possible.
Communicate clearly: Straight talk, gentle tone. Normalize hard conversations and revisit them as needs evolve.
Support the family system: Teach caregiving skills, plan respite, and check caregiver burden regularly.
Collaborate across disciplines: Social work, chaplaincy, therapy, pharmacy—integrate everyone’s strengths.
Document preferences: Advance directives, POLST forms (as applicable), and goals-of-care notes keep care aligned.
Presence is powerful. Your calm steadies the room.
How to Display Palliative Care Skills on Your Resume
6. Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic
Epic centralizes health information—histories, meds, labs, plans—so you can act fast and keep everyone informed, even on the go.
Why It's Important
Accurate, timely documentation improves safety, coordination, and outcomes. Less guesswork, more clarity.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic Skills
Streamline your workspace: Customize views, favorites, and smart phrases to match your home-health workflow.
Document in real time: Mobile companion apps and offline notes help you capture details while they’re fresh.
Template wisely: Use problem-oriented notes and checklists that prompt complete, relevant data without bloat.
Tighten med safety: Keep medication lists pristine, reconcile at each visit, and flag discrepancies for the team.
Close the loop: Route updates to providers promptly; use in-basket messaging for quick clarifications.
Keep learning: Short refreshers on new features and periodic tip-swaps with peers pay off fast.
Your chart should read like a map—not a maze.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic Skills on Your Resume
7. IV Therapy
IV therapy brings fluids, meds, and nutrients straight to the bloodstream. At home, that means vigilance, clean technique, and equipment that behaves.
Why It's Important
When oral routes won’t cut it—or timing is critical—IV access delivers reliable, rapid therapy without a hospital stay.
How to Improve IV Therapy Skills
Protect from infection: Aseptic technique, scrub-the-hub, and securement that actually holds. Check sites every visit.
Choose the right gear: Catheter type, dressing, extension sets, and pumps should fit therapy duration and patient mobility.
Spot trouble early: Infiltration, extravasation, phlebitis, occlusions—teach signs and set escalation steps.
Standardize flushing and locks: Follow current policies for flush volumes and anticoagulant locks.
Teach the home team: Safe handling, line protection during daily activities, and when to call for help.
Document numbers: Intake totals, pump settings, site condition, and any adverse symptoms—every time.
Clean lines, calm patients, fewer complications.
How to Display IV Therapy Skills on Your Resume
8. Telehealth Proficiency
From video visits to remote checks, telehealth extends your reach. Done right, it feels personal, even through a screen.
Why It's Important
Patients get timely care without travel, and issues get addressed before they balloon. Continuity improves; no-shows drop.
How to Improve Telehealth Proficiency Skills
Master the tech: Know your platform cold—audio, video, screen share, messaging, backups if Wi‑Fi falters.
Protect privacy: Verify identity, confirm consent, and ensure conversations are private and secure.
Elevate the “webside” manner: Good lighting, clear audio, eye contact with the camera, and paced, plain language.
Prep patients: Send simple instructions ahead of time—how to join, what to have ready (meds, logs, devices).
Triage smartly: Know which concerns fit telehealth and which require in-person assessment, labs, or urgent care.
Friction low. Connection high.
How to Display Telehealth Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
9. CPR Certified
Current BLS/CPR certification signals you can respond when seconds count—cardiac arrest, choking, respiratory failure.
Why It's Important
In the home, you may be the only clinician present. Rapid, high-quality CPR can change everything.
How to Improve CPR Certified Skills
Refresh regularly: Practice compressions, ventilations, and AED use well before renewal time.
Drill for realism: Simulate cramped spaces, low beds, and awkward layouts you actually see in the field.
Focus on quality: Rate, depth, recoil, minimal pauses—train for muscle memory.
Know the updates: Guidelines evolve; incorporate changes into team practice.
Debrief events: After any real-world response, review what went well and what to tighten.
Confidence follows repetition.
How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume
10. Patient Education
Teaching that sticks—simple, relevant, and doable—turns visits into momentum. Patients become partners.
Why It's Important
Good education boosts adherence, reduces complications, and fosters independence. That’s safer care and fewer readmissions.
How to Improve Patient Education Skills
Assess how they learn: Literacy, language, vision, hearing, stress—adjust your approach accordingly.
Use plain language: Short sentences, familiar words, and concrete steps. Visuals help.
Teach-back every time: Ask patients to show or explain the task—then fill the gaps.
Chunk and check: Break information into bite-sized pieces; pause to confirm understanding.
Send leave-behinds: Clear handouts, labeled med lists, and step-by-step checklists tailored to the home routine.
Set SMART goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound—so progress is visible.
Clarity beats volume. Less noise, more action.
How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume
11. Multitasking
In home care, it’s really rapid prioritizing and clean task switching: care delivery, documentation, coordination, and teaching—without letting quality slip.
Why It's Important
Patients have layered needs. Being able to pivot—safely and calmly—keeps the visit efficient and the care complete.
How to Improve Multitasking Skills
Prioritize with purpose: Tackle urgent and important first, then work down. Protect time for safety-critical tasks.
Time-block your visit: Assessment, intervention, teaching, documentation—give each a slot to curb drift.
Use checklists and templates: Reduce cognitive load so attention stays on the patient.
Streamline handoffs: Standard, concise updates prevent rework and confusion later.
Cut interruptions: Silence notifications when performing high-risk tasks; resume after.
Focus is a force multiplier.
How to Display Multitasking Skills on Your Resume
12. Time Management
Routes, visits, calls, charting, follow-ups—your clock has to be your ally, not your enemy.
Why It's Important
Good time management cuts stress, preserves quality, and lets you serve more patients without burning out.
How to Improve Time Management Skills
Plan the day upfront: Sequence visits by acuity and geography. Build buffers for the unexpected.
Batch similar tasks: Chart in blocks, make clustered calls, prep supplies once.
Use smart routing: Map efficient paths and adjust when traffic or weather misbehaves.
Set realistic visit lengths: Don’t rob complex patients of the time they need.
Say no to time thieves: Trim nonessential steps and automate reminders where you can.
Protect recovery: Short breaks sharpen thinking and prevent mistakes.
When your schedule breathes, your care improves.
How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume
