The home care industry is ever changing and if you want to sustain in this, you will need to know about the continual changes that goes on in this landscape. One of the most significant things that you should care for is retaining your talented and skillful caregivers.
• In addition to that, you will also need to consider your ability as a care giving agency to manage your care giving schedules more efficiently. This will also in turn impact on the retention of your skillful care givers as well as in your service delivery.
• Another thing that you should be wary of is the care coordinators and schedulers in your team. This will ensure that you have the correct visibility into the schedules as well as the client locations.
All these will help you to visualize client locations as well as the availability of the care givers quickly. For example, if a client cancels a visit, it is important for you as an agency owner to know that there is an opening of the caregiver now. This will help you to reschedule the program of the caregiver in such a way that it will help you to optimize their time, availability as well as the demands of your clients to receive a
home care service.
This will invariably reduce the level of frustration for you, all of the staff members, as well as the care givers in person. This will also help you to ensure that the caregivers feel that they are taken well acre of by you, their time is valued and they are respected.
Need for continuous improvement
As it is, home care industry and service is highly unpredictable. That means that the visits, clients demand and the types of service provided will not always go as planned. It means that you will need to be flexible enough to accommodate the changes in the demands of the clients in the most efficient and productive way.
Appreciatively and fortunately, the payers today are more realistic and they do not expect the home care giving agencies to establish perfection. However, that does not mean that these agencies will be lackadaisical in their approach.
• In fact, what is required by these agencies is to ensure that they demonstrate that they are committed to continuously improving their operations.
• However, to do this the home care are required to ensure that it monitors the way care is delivered on a regular basis.
The main points that the care agencies should consider at this point are:
• The average length of visit
• Whether or not the care givers are devoting enough time to perform their assigned duties
• Whether they are staying too long or not long enough to leave their tasks incomplete
• Validating their visits with respect to the care plans to be delivered
• Whether or not the care plans are designed as accurately as desired and much more.
This is not an easy task and need a lot of planning and research and most importantly, it requires the agencies to use more accurate Electronic Visit Verification tools, just like the reliable and reputed home care agencies do. This is why you will find that the home care services that provided by
MyAllAmericanCare and others are so well planned and executed.
Automation of workflows
This is another aspect that the home health care agencies should look into. Automation of workflows will result in elimination of the traditional paper-based processes. It will also play a key role in:
• Increasing the efficiency or the care giver
• Productivity of the agency on the whole which can increase 25% or more according to research reports and
• Even freeing the busy care givers so that they can see additional clients.
These are all data-driven processes that the home care agencies should deploy. These processes will help them to improve their care giving processes as well as instill the desired confidence in the payers. Most importantly, it will set up the home care agencies for success.
Staff the right care givers
It is only when a care giving agency staffs the right care givers that will ultimately determine the growth of the agency. Ideally, the secret of survival of the care giving agencies lies in on different factors such as:
• Its ability to staff the right care givers
• The proficiency in delivering the right services and
• The impact and the right outcomes of their services.
It is required by the agencies to follow an empirical approach that will help them to demonstrate end-to-end performances. This will in turn enable the agencies to have easy access to the required data that they require to win more RFPs as well as to gain vital new referrals of home care sources.
The changing circumstances
The home care agencies all need to encounter and deal proficiently with the changing circumstances in this industry. There are more things to consider by the home care agencies that will eliminate the nerve-wracking experiences of the care givers. This will enable them to
provide a better care service as they will not have to walk into an unknown situation in the home of a client.
• These situations include everything from aggressive dogs to ill-mannered kids
• From contagious illnesses, to ill-tempered patients.
It is impossible for the care giver to be sure about what they will exactly find on the other side when they visit a client’s house.
This calls for up-to-date documentation. This is the most crucial first step but the fact that the home care agencies have to rely on the care givers and their care givers and the responsibilities on them to document the proceedings at the right moment in the right manner is what that will really make the difference.
Wrapping it up
Therefore, in this digital and fast paced world where the consumers everything to be delivered to the on time and in perfect condition, there is no other way that investing on a digital solution by the home health care service providers. Without continuous improvement, chances of survival of the home care agencies seem to be bleak.