📢 🏠 👩⚕️ Fresh back from Home Care Innovation Forum – a timely event!
Three themes popped for me: 1) headwinds as opportunities, 2) humans & machines, 3) thriving with workforce constraints. Notes below, I hope helpful!
– Headwinds as Opportunity –
Headwinds include:
+ Falling hours/client & hours/caregiver
+ Rising bill rates - will reduce affordability & shrink market for private duty
+ Workforce constraints
+ Payment models predicated on pay-per-hour dynamics
Quote: “Being a victim and just accepting what you get” won’t work in this environment.
Opportunities:
+ Better integration across care continuum – home care / home health / hospice
+ More risk sharing / new payment models (agencies creating differentiated impact will benefit)
+ Non-tech innovation - operating models, care models, office/team structures (including smarter standardization / centralization / center-of-excellence-ization / outsourcing)
+ Better utilization of existing software to improve “blocking & tackling” operations and drive consistency of excellence across locations
+ Family caregivers - payment models supporting their work/efforts, and care models that integrate them more intentionally
– Humans & Machines –
Fascinating interplay between what was said onstage & off.
Everyone sees dramatic potential for AI/ML, remote sensors/monitoring, etc – and some of the impact that technology is already having, in pockets, making operational workflows and care models more effective / efficient.
At same time, operators are BEGGING for practicality. My house is on fire (see “headwinds” above). Don’t tell me what the firefighter of 2030 will look like. Hand me a ladder. Show me concrete use cases. At minimum, show me a clear path to use cases, tell me what I need to do now, and tell me why it’s worthy of my headspace in the coming 12 months.
And, at root: This is an industry built on human touch, built on humanity. And when we imagine ourselves as future consumers of home-based care – what role will we want humans to play in our care? Our preferences will drive market demand, which will ultimately drive business models & care models.
– Thriving in a Constrained Workforce Environment –
Workforce constraints are obvious and will be enduring.
Clear mandate to increase “net workforce” – not just hire faster – by setting up people models required to fuel the growth this industry rightly anticipates in the coming decade.
Key themes:
+ Retention requires fostering a culture of connection within our teams – see above, re “humans & machines”
+ Automating workflows and prioritizing tasks can free up time, allowing caregivers to focus on delivering care, and enabling administrators to focus on human-centric work like managing a care-team and actively knowing clients & caregivers, in real-time, on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis
Would welcome thoughts on above!
And big thanks to HCIF for the excellent event.