No shift changes involved at our agency. We all work 830am to 430pm Monday thru Friday. Have an "on call" nurse who is available for after hours and weekend visits. The on call nurse rotates on a regular schedule. The major changes with home health are the people you think you are visiting on a specific day. If one nurse calls off then another nurse has to pick up her required visits for the day. Also you can get a referral on a new patient who has to be seen so there goes the schedule again.

When I worked in home health, I worked actual shifts in someone's home. Whether or not I had shift change in a traditional sense depended on the case. Most of my cases involved 24 hour nursing care. In those cases, I stayed with the patient until my relief showed up and we exchanged traditional report. If a nurse called off, and no replacement could be found I would have to stay until someone relieved me--especially on vent cases. However, some of my cases were respite care for the parents. Usually the nurse (me) would work eight hours of the day, usually night shift, so the primary care givers (the parents) could sleep. In those cases, I gave report to the parents at the end of my shift. I say parents because I only worked peds cases. If the parents were out and late getting home, of course, I would have to stay until they got there (this never happened to me).