What is a nursing home?

What is a nursing home?

Karl Steinberg (Associate Medical Director, Sharp Mission Park Medical Group) gives expert video advice on: What are the signs my parent is ready for long-term care?; What is the first thing I should do if I believe my parent needs long-term care?; Who can help me implement a long-term care plan for my parent? and more...

A nursing home or nursing facility, I guess the generic term, nursing home would apply to both nursing facilities and skilled nursing facilities. And essentially it's a place where there are nurses, usually 24/7. Although some facilities may not have registered nurses 24/7. And a nursing facility that is not skilled doesn't have high-level types of nursing interventions but they do have the ability to take care of incontinence care and some degree of wound care, things of that nature. Whereas a skilled nursing facility pretty much has the full range of nursing services including taking care of lines or tubes. In fact some of them even may be able to take care of ventilator patients and things like that.