EasyLiving proudly participates in an independent quality assurance program, through an organization called Home Care Pulse. We are thrilled that we were recently awarded their Best of Home Care award, for maintaining high scores in quality assurance benchmarks for home health services.
A big congratulations to our home caregivers for all their hard work in achieving this award! We value and appreciate the time that our clients and families take to give us this feedback as well.
We thought this would be a good time to share a little bit about why we participate in a home health agency quality assurance program (why it matters to us, and more importantly, why it matters to you). It may seem obvious, but in the private duty home care field, and especially with many individuals working unregulated as home caregivers, quality assurance is often overlooked. If you are considering hiring home health services, this information will illustrate why you should seek a provider who participates in a home health quality assurance program and what questions to ask about home health quality measures.
Why does EasyLiving have a quality assurance program? Families trust us with the care of their loved ones. In such a high trust business, we have to know if we are meeting clients’ needs (and, hopefully exceeding their expectations) or where we are lacking. Quality assurance helps us quickly pinpoint any issues or concerns and further build upon our strengths.
Why does this matter to our Florida home health agency clients? It is easy to say we want your feedback or will listen to any concerns you have, but true feedback and improvement rarely happens without a specific system. Clients benefit because our improvements, our systems, our changes…are based on what they tell us.
Why does EasyLiving use an independent quality assurance program? We have found that using an independent quality assurance program like Home Care Pulse gives us a better snapshot of how we are doing, in addition to the direct communication we have with our staff and clients. Sometimes caregivers or clients are hesitant to bring up constructive criticisms, and the independent interviews often yield important feedback we might not get otherwise. We feel it is equally important to get our caregivers’ feedback, as it is essential to our home care mission that we create an environment in which we set our team members up for success. With such a program, we are also able to benchmark our results within our industry, to ensure we’re providing top quality services.
What do we do with the information gathered in our home health agency quality assurance program? Our staff reviews our results regularly (we get monthly reports, in addition to graphs summarizing our results over time–you can check out our latest home care survey results on our home care testimonials page) to spot any trends or changes we need to make. The feedback helps us to determine where systems and processes may be lacking. Just a few of the programs we have put in to place because of this continual improvement system include: our caregiver coaching opportunities, a telephony clock-in system, a web-based careplan system and our caregiver training and rewards programs. Ultimately, all of these systems are designed to enhance the success of our team members, ensuring they provide the best in home care services to our local community. We know the way we do things cannot be static, and getting constant feedback allows us to adjust as needed and find ways to get better (or better meet changing needs).
If you are seeking home health services, find out if the providers you are interviewing participate in a quality assurance program. Ask how they get feedback and measure their results. Here are some additional questions to consider:
Do they benchmark their results against standards?
What aspects of home health quality do they measure?
Do they also do quality assurance with their staff to find out about job satisfaction and the support needs of their home caregivers?
Where can you view the home health agency’s quality assurance results?
Can they give you an example of changes they have implemented or policies and systems they are using to address concerns or make improvements from the feedback?
Will they share customers’ constructive criticism or complaints with you? How have they resolved such concerns or addressed a customer issue?
If you need quality home health care services in Pinellas and Pasco counties in Florida, or need help with senior care concerns, contact us directly at 727-448-0900 or click below:
