Top 7 Home Health Nurse Interview Questions

Home health nurses are trained to provide care to patients within their own homes. These patients may be ill, disabled, elderly, or recovering from an illness or injury after being discharged from the hospital. Providing at-home nursing care warrants unique considerations that can be different from that of traditional hospital settings. As such, it’s important to ask the right home health nurse interview questions to find the best candidates for your organization.

To help you hire qualified home health nurses, we’ll outline seven key interview questions you should ask and what to listen for and will also provide a free downloadable assessment form to help you analyze their responses. Pair these questions with a strong job description to narrow down the best pool of talent.

Need additional insights? See how other facilities are advertising their home health nurse openings and learn how you can stand out from the crowd.

Home Health Care Nurse Interview Questions

Home health nursing can be a popular specialty for both new grads and experienced nurses. It’s important to keep this in mind and center your questions around the qualities and skills needed to succeed in the role. Here are seven home health nurse interview questions that can help you get the most out of your next round of interviews.

1. What inspired you to become a home health nurse?

This is a great question to open with because it gives your candidate the opportunity to provide a more personalized introduction. Beyond getting to know a candidate’s personal journey into home health nursing, you can also get a sense of their motivations and values.

What to listen for:

• Genuine passion for helping patients with long-term health needs
• Interest in traveling to different locations and getting to know diverse patients/families

Potential follow-up questions:

• How do you think home health care differs from other types of care settings?
• What qualities do you think a home health nurse needs to be successful in their role?

2. What strategies would you use to help patients stick to a routine, daily health regimen?

Many home health patients need help maintaining their health or managing long-term conditions. Because of this, it’s important for home health nurses to encourage healthy habits and routines in their patients. This question will give you a sense of how a candidate might approach this in their daily work.

What to listen for:

• Organizational skills needed to coordinate regimented schedules that meet each patient’s needs
• Strong approaches to advocating for, encouraging, and involving patients in their care

Potential follow-up questions:

• What would you do to help a patient who was having trouble remembering to take their daily medications?
• How would you handle a patient who is upset and refusing care?

3. How do you promote independence and self-care among your patients?

Delivering care in a patient’s home requires a delicate balance of providing assistance while encouraging patients to act independently when they can. Asking home health nurse interview questions like this will help you evaluate how a candidate would strike this balance and whether they have the ability to meet their patients where they are.

What to listen for:

• Consideration of patient’s wants and needs when carrying out daily care tasks
• Ability to respect a patient’s autonomy while providing necessary assistance

Potential follow-up questions:

• Tell me about a time you had to tailor your communication to help a patient understand their treatment plan.
• What unique considerations would you make when providing care for a bedridden patient in their home?

4. How would you assess and address safety hazards in the patient’s home environment?

Home health nurses provide care directly in patient homes, which can pose safety hazards that are quite different from those found in a regulated hospital setting. This question assesses how a candidate would adapt to (and account for) different environments to keep both the patient and themselves safe.

What to listen for:

• Understanding of common safety hazards that may arise in home care settings
• Ability to identify hazards and implement appropriate nursing interventions or reach out for help when necessary

Potential follow-up questions:

• What would you do if there was an unexpected emergency in a patient’s home?
• How would you coordinate care with home health aides who may be working with you?

5. What steps do you take to maintain a patient’s dignity and privacy?

When formulating questions for home health nurse candidates, it’s always important to touch on privacy considerations. Receiving care in one’s home can be a vulnerable experience, and nurses must know how to be respectful of the patient’s personal space. This question evaluates what measures a candidate would take to preserve a patient’s dignity and privacy from both a personal and legal standpoint.

What to listen for:

• Attention to detail and openness to learning about each patient’s boundaries and needs
• Basic understanding of HIPAA laws and how they relate to other household members

Potential follow-up questions:

• How do you maintain patient privacy when charting information?
• What steps would you take to deliver culturally competent care in a patient’s home?

6. What’s your process for keeping a patient’s family informed and involved in their loved one’s care?

Home health nurses regularly interact with family members who live with their patients or are involved in daily care. As such, home health nurse interview questions (and answers) should also touch on a candidate’s communication skills and their ability to account for the needs of other personal caregivers.

What to listen for:

• Ability to listen to and empathize with the needs of family members
• Consideration of HIPAA laws when communicating with family caregivers

Potential follow-up questions:

• What would you do if a patient’s family was not satisfied with their loved one’s care?
• How would you handle situations in which you needed to discuss end-of-life care?

7. How comfortable are you with traveling to different locations throughout the day?

Home health nurses are expected to travel to various patient homes throughout their day. This question opens up a conversation around the logistical requirements of the job — evaluating whether a candidate would be able to get their assigned locations on time each day.

What to listen for:

• Confirmation that the candidate has a car or another reliable mode of transportation
• Willingness and adaptability to travel around the city to get to required locations

Potential follow-up questions:

• How far are you willing to travel to get to different patient locations?
• How would you coordinate care for two patients who live on opposite sides of the city?

Fill Your Facility’s Openings With High Quality Nurses

Now that you have a list of home health nurse interview questions to ask, you may be ready to start bringing in nurses to interview. Need help finding quality candidates? IntelyCare’s job board can help you reach a nationwide network of nurses who are actively seeking their next roles.