By Robyn Stone
The Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts gave me one of my most memorable experiences of 2019.
It’s traditional to spend at least a few days each January making lofty, and sometimes unrealistic, resolutions about the great things we plan to accomplish in the coming New Year.
I prefer to look backward.
Pressing the “rewind button” on the past year helps me remember what I’ve accomplished, appreciate more fully what I’ve experienced, and contemplate how I can use the lessons of the old year to do better in the new one.
I’ve stopped 2019’s rewind tape many times to revisit meaningful events and experiences from the past 12 months. But the first 2 stops—both in November—have stayed with me because they focused on an issue I’m passionate about: elevating the role of the home care aide.
SAME ISSUE, TWO APPROACHES
I wrote in December about one of those events: a session at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in Austin. I joined several colleagues in sharing our research on strategies for enhancing the role of home care aides and integrating those aides more fully into home-based care teams.
I believe strongly that this approach has tremendous potential to help the home care field reach 2 critical goals:
- Increase care quality by taking full advantage of the advanced skills home care aides can acquire with proper training, support, and supervision.
- Use an enhanced home care aide position to entice high-quality workers to pursue jobs in the home care field, and grow into meaningful careers over the long term.
Rewind my 2019 tape a bit further and you’ll discover that I traveled to Austin from Sturbridge, MA, where I also spent time discussing the future of the home care workforce, this time with members of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts. About 165 home care agencies—both Medicare-certified and non-skilled care providers—belong to this 50-year-old organization.
Many of those agencies were represented at a workforce conference in November where I delivered the keynote address. These agencies find themselves where “the rubber meets the road,” working day in and day out to head off the looming workforce crisis. And the Home Care Alliance, led by Executive Director Pat Kelleher, works hard to help them succeed.
A LESSON FROM THE FRONTLINES
Here’s the main lesson I learned from my day in Sturbridge:
Home care agencies need researchers like me to identify and evaluate best practices in recruitment, training, supervision, and retention of the home care workforce.
They need policy makers to step up to the plate and increase reimbursement and funding for robust, standardized training programs.
But they also need practical ideas—big and small—that they can put into practice right now to fill vacant positions and keep those positions filled with highly qualified and reliable home care aides.
6 PRACTICES TO STRENGTHEN THE HOME CARE WORKFORCE
Conference attendees got those practical ideas from an energetic group of presenters, many of whom represent home care agencies. These presenters know from firsthand experience that you can’t provide high-quality home care services without a strong home care workforce.
I was impressed by 6 practices these agencies are already implementing and by the advice they offered their peers.
- Involve current employees in recruitment. If your aides are happy, they will become your best referral source for new employees. Several agencies encourage those referrals by offering a bonus to employees who bring them new workers.
- Don’t skimp on financial benefits. Aberdeen Home Care in Danvers, MA, has invested in a robust benefit package that includes making corporate contributions to aides’ retirement plans and offering those aides access to retirement planning support. Workers truly appreciate their newfound ability to make long-term career plans.
- Be creative with other benefits. No benefit is too small if it shows that an agency cares about its employees. All Care VNA & Hospice in Lynn, MA, gives employees free rock salt for their driveways each winter, and year-round access to a company-owned backup vehicle if they have car trouble. Other agencies are looking into offering accelerated pay to workers who need it. Getting paid every 3 days, instead of every 2 weeks, can be a lifesaver for workers who have trouble making ends meet.
- Offer incentives for excellence. Houseworks, in Newton, MA, uses an internal star-rating system to encourage career advancement among aides. Aides with high ratings, based on consumer feedback and supervisor observations, qualify for upward mobility and special training. Recognizing that not every aide wants to be an LPN, All Care encourages workers to move up the career ladder by becoming schedulers, supervisors, or dementia-care specialists.
- Reduce worker isolation. Several agencies have taken steps to help workers feel connected to one another, which is a critical need for aides who work by themselves. These agencies publish newsletters designed specifically for aides, host regular social gatherings, or hold events like flu shot clinics.
- Work smart. Some agencies use technology to make aides’ jobs easier. For example, computerized scheduling helped All Care respond to worker requests to minimize their travel time between client homes. Premiere Home Health Care Services of Massachusetts implements a real-time data project that makes it easier for aides to observe and alert managers about a client’s developing condition. In addition to helping aides feel valued, the program has had a positive effect on the agency’s readmission rates.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020
It was great to hear alliance members sharing these great ideas with one another. I’m sure conference attendees walked away more committed to evaluating their own internal processes and trying to do better. I hope they felt less alone as they face the workforce crisis. I’d like to think they left Sturbridge feeling a little bit more hopeful about the future.
Kudos to the Home Care Alliance for providing a forum to share promising practices—and for giving me one of my most memorable experiences of 2019.
Let’s resolve to hold more gatherings like this in 2020.
Robyn I. Stone, DrPH, is senior vice president of research at LeadingAge, and co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston. Her widely published work addresses long-term care policy and quality, chronic care for people with disabilities, the aging services workforce, affordable senior housing, and family caregiving.