Home Care & Hospice Month, a time to celebrate and recognize the practice
of home-based care and all the people who make it possible. This week focuses
solely on home care aides. To reward front line workers in the health care
system, CellTrak and National Association of Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) are
awarding multiple scholarships for aides.
As COVID-19 ripped
through the home care industry, CellTrak realized that its commitment to the
scholarship program was more important than ever. In March, many of the company’s
home care aides found themselves forced to make tough choices, yet they
remained at the forefront of providing care in the home.
Because of the
dedication of these caregivers, CellTrak wants to recognize and support their
efforts in continuing a career path as a home care hero. The company’s hope is
that the scholarship program will give even more recipients an opportunity to
advance their careers within the industry.
“Caregivers are the backbone of the home and
community care industry,” says Cheryl Reid-Haughian, Vice President of Clinical
Informatics at CellTrak. “There is no question about that.”
Here are three ways
that agencies can continue to support, and honor, their caregivers.
Provide them
tools that keep them safe
Technology tools can enhance a caregiver’s
work life in a number of ways, including several that revolve around safety.
While COVID-19 increases the value of a person’s home as a care-delivery site,
it also creates new safety challenges for caregivers, who might have to enter the
home of a patient with COVID.
“Never before has there been a greater need to
have communication tools where messages about day-to-day changes, or patient
changes, or supply management protocols are coming out and being communicated
to the front line,” Reid-Haughian says. “Information must be accessible to
people, with communication as frequently and as clearly as possible. Technology
can really hit that mark.”
Managing emotional fatigue is another huge
challenge for home-based caregivers — and another area where agencies can help
them through technology tools.
“We see 64% turnover in home and community
care, and with COVID requirements, it’s a pretty tiring environment to work
in,” Reid-Haughian says. Giving caregivers on-demand online access to employee
assistance programs — which can assist their mental and emotional health — is a
vital boost.
That goes for learning management systems,
too, as well as screening tools that allow for staff to check themselves, or
patients, for signs of COVID. Meanwhile, tools that facilitate electronic visit
verification, or EVV, enhance staff safety too.
“If you have a new caregiver going to a new
home they’ve never visited, the agency team can support them better through
EVV, because they can verify that they’ve arrived safely, and allow for
continuous communication with the home office,” says CellTrak EVV expert
Courtney Martin.
“In this environment where there are a lot of
stressors on caregivers, having these tools to keep them engaged and safe, and
give them support when others are not physically in the home with them, is very
critical.”
Provide them tools to improve their
job performance
Some of the tools that agencies provide
caregivers to keep them safe also help them improve their job performance. An
employee assistance program, for instance, might help a caregiver’s emotional
wellbeing, which keeps them safe, but in turn impacts their ability to perform
their duties. EVV can fit smoothly into a caregiver’s workflow,
ensuring that they receive the benefits of the technology without any
drawbacks.
“I think the other tool that we have to help
them do their job better is their schedule and their care plan activities,
which are embedded in their point-of-care documentation tool,” Reid-Haughian
says.
“When a worker, an aide, comes to their visit,
they can easily see all of the details about the patient and easily see what
duties they are to do for the day. More and more, we’re seeing organizations
leverage this tool as a way to help the aide. This helps them deliver good
value for patients.”
Find ways to reward their work
Caregivers don’t simply work hard. They work
with heart, blending their expertise with their empathy. Celebrating them and
rewarding them for that passion and commitment is good for caregivers, good for
care teams and great for patients.
Along with rewards and recognition, agencies
can also show that appreciation by having technology systems that pay
caregivers in a timely manner and give them the tools they need to best aid
their patients.
“It doesn’t have to be extravagant,”
Reid-Haughian says. “Just having a budget for this and making sure that people
know that their work is appreciated, is really critical.”
Caregivers go the extra mile. They drive
clients to the pharmacy or the cleaners. They assist their fellow caregivers to
tag into shifts when needed. They are often the first people to notice when a
patient has declined — a key step to preventing an avoidable hospitalization. A
system that fully documents this work and effort can show all involved just how
valuable each caregiver is and let them know how much you care.
To learn
more about how CellTrak is celebrating caregivers through the CellTrak Home
Care Aide Scholarship, visit
CellTrak.com.
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