For a company to provide quality home health, it must create a consistent process of quality improvement. What are some of they key components to ensuring quality home health?
- Selective recruiting: locating sufficient home caregivers to meet clients’ needs, while selecting the right caregivers with the skills and qualities to meet high standards.
- Training and caregiver coaching: initial and ongoing caregiver training relevant to client needs and skills along with a consistent coaching to provide opportunities for feedback and improvement, as well as rewards for quality service.
- Caregiver support: ensuring caregivers have information to do the best job for the client, along with ongoing support for questions, concerns, and changes that arise.
- Good communication: ensuring good communication-between staff, between staff and family members, between various client providers/care team. This also includes a system for soliciting feedback and using it to improve/make changes.
What methods does EasyLiving use to address these components of quality home health?
- A specific recruiting plan along with a selection process that includes a screening tool and behavioral interviewing for the home caregiver role.
- A professionally designed caregiver orientation, along with a thorough continuing education program, provided by EasyLiving with paid time for caregivers to attend. Our Caregiver Coaching Opportunities™ are regularly scheduled reviews with each caregiver and our Director of Operations. During these caregiver coaching opportunities, we discuss work performance and client and staff feedback, as well as what additional support can be given and areas for growth. We work together to identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. If a caregiver is weak in knowledge of nutrition, we can ensure he or she attends our upcoming training on that topic or if a caregiver is struggling with managing the needs of a client with dementia, our Certified Dementia trainer can work with him or her on techniques.
- A comprehensive careplan for each client so that caregivers understand specific duties and instructions (everything from schedules to how the client likes his/her coffee), relieving the client of having to instruct or “entertain” the caregiver and ensuring the caregiver is prepared to best help the client.
- A dedicated Client Care and Safety Coordinator on staff, who not only provides staff safety training but also visits clients and caregivers in the home to review how care is being provided and offer coaching on ways to improve. This is a truly unique position, providing real quality assurance and support for caregivers in the field and relieving the burden on clients to point out concerns or notice room for improvement (we’re always very open to hearing this, but we find that many clients are reluctant, so this allows us to spot things that they may hesitate to point out).
- We use the latest technology to enhance communication (this also enables us to provide better service, while maintaining lower costs to the client). We use an online management system for client information and care coordination. We also use telephony, which is a telephone-based tracking system for our caregivers to clock in and out at a client’s home. Our team is alerted if a caregiver has not arrived on time and the system provides accuracy in schedule management and billing.
- All of this and our day-to-day decisions stem from the specific model we have created to run our mission-driven company, in which we focus on our caregivers as our #1 priority.
To learn more about EasyLiving’s Quality Home Care program or get answers to your senior care questions, contact EasyLiving via the web or at 727-447-5845.
Home caregiver looking to join a quality team that provides coaching and support so you can do the work you love? Visit EasyLiving Home Care Careers.
