Some of the largest difficulties in home-based care stem from one reality: that the workforce is remote.
Yet, providers often preach about the importance of cultivating a culture that is welcoming, engaging and gives employees a sense of purpose.
In order to do so, providers have gone lots of different routes. All the while, there are companies popping up that are specifically tailoring their business models to help home-based care providers with this.
For instance, Connecteam, which is an app developed specifically to help manage and engage deskless workers.
“Being a home health caregiver is a physically and emotionally demanding job,” Chen Shofar, chief product evangelist at Connecteam, told Home Health Care News. “You’re usually by yourself and it can be isolating and lonely. Having those caregivers be able to engage on a daily basis is critical for their experience.”
New York-based Connecteam was officially launched about seven years ago. One of its first clients was Total Compass Care — a Florida-based home care provider.
Total Compass Care offers personal care, companion care and skilled nursing services such as occupational and physical therapy.
Brian Jolliff, COO at Total Compass Care, started the company with his sister.
“Our first major client was a 24-hour client, and I saw this as an opportunity to grow,” Joliff said. “We’re a small company, but I wanted to think big. I wanted us to grow and to be a big company in the first five or six years. In order to do that, we needed a tool that could help us scale seamlessly.”
Connecteam was one of the first platforms that Total Compass Care had tested, and it’s worked with the company since.
Through the Connecteam app, caregivers with Total Compass Care are able to get real-time updates on their schedule, communicate easily with their managers, request time off, review their pay and conduct other everyday tasks that were previously done manually or by several applications.
“One of the first things that I noticed, and when I knew this would really benefit us, is when I stopped getting calls from my staff,” Joliff said. “Everything’s accessible on Connecteam. They go into the app, they know what they need to do. They know what’s expected of them with each client, they have the care plan, they have their onboarding process and everything they need to perform those services.”
Cultivating a sense of community is still a tough task. But the Connecteam staff believe they are on the way to bridging that gap.
“We’re in the business of solving problems for our customers,” Shofar said. “A lot of the companies we work with have a problem retaining employees because they don’t feel as engaged or part of something. This allows managers to help caregivers feel seen, appreciated and recognized.”
Having a platform where caregivers can connect with each other – and their managers – can go a long way in having them feel like their workplace is invested in the employee experience, Shofar said.
“As a result, caregivers can feel more connected to what they do and the reason they do it,” Shofar said.
At the operational level, Joliff said the ability for him to make sure caregivers are where they need to be, when they need to be there is a major benefit from a productivity standpoint.
“My ability to see when they’re at the home is great,” he said. “I can also prove to the state of Florida through the electronic visitation verification that, ‘Here: my staff is at the location. Here are the numbers, here is this spreadsheet.’”
Shofar, like many others in the digital health space, recognizes the growth opportunity in home-based care. Connecteam also has the California-based Recruitment Alley and the UK-based home care franchise network Caremark as customers.
“It’s a growing industry and we’re excited to be involved in it and to expand even further where we have the opportunity,” Shofar said.
Companies featured in this article:
