There are many things you should do before your Home Health Aide test to get ready.
First, you should read your handbook from cover to cover. This will give you a good idea of what is expected of you during the test and what is going to be covered. You should understand all of the material in the book and know how each part of HHA works, such as setting up a patient for an exam or inserting an IV drip.
Next, start practicing. If you have never done this before or haven't done it in a long time, I highly suggest that you go out and practice setting up patients for exams or placing IV drips before your exam day. A lot of these things are common sense but sometimes we forget the little things. The last thing you should do before your test is reviewing the questions. HHA requires that you know each part of the exam and what to expect during the test. The questions on the VCom give a good idea of what will be covered.
You should also look at other exams you are preparing for so you can see what topics will be covered and how they match up to HHA. If you have found a good study guide, review it before your exam day to see how it matches up to HHA. You may also want to look at this guide before you take the exam so you can see what to expect.
Now that you have read over your handbook and practiced, it is time to study. You should try as many HHA questions as possible before your test. Most people would recommend that you should know the answers to all of the questions on the exam, but I would be happy if I could just answer half of them correctly. The important part here is that if the question is on HHA and not VCom, then you should know how to do it or know where to find it in your handbook since VCom is a bit vague in certain areas. After you have finished an exam, read over it. If you got the question right, then good job, but maybe look over the VCom answer a little more closely to see why that was right and yours was wrong. If you got a question wrong, read over your handbook to look for where it was covered and review that section again. Most of the questions on HHA will be in the handbook but there may be some obscure questions that are not so easy to find.
Next, it is time to get ready for your exam day. You should have already been practicing many different aspects of your HHA from setting up patients for exams to inserting IV drips or taking blood pressure readings. After you study for the exam, review what is covered in the handbook and practice handling those situations. Also, be sure to review the VCom questions from your exams that you got wrong. You should also spend time before and after your test reviewing information that is not going to be on the test.
HHA testing day is a real test of your HHA skills. It requires a lot of thinking and problem-solving. Don't be afraid to ask questions because your teacher is there to help out. They are not there to trick you or catch you off guard, they are just trying to test your abilities. The best card you have in your handbook and knowledge of what is inside it. I have had many teachers who just read the script and follow the exact cards all day. The ones who really know what they are talking about usually go off of their experience and expand on a particular subject. If you can understand that then hopefully you will do better on your test.
Well, that's all for now. I hope you learned a lot from this blog, till my next article!
