Policy Power: How Strong Procedures Drive Better Home Care

Policy Power: How Strong Procedures Drive Better Home Care

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Dennis Gill: Okay. So, Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a Home Care Podcast. I’m Dennis Gill, Senior Sales Consultant at Caresmartz.

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Dennis Gill: Today we are diving into something. Every agency needs strong procedures. Joining me is someone who’s been in the trenches of home care for over 2 decades.

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Dennis Gill: She is a registered nurse, business leader, agency owner, and a consultant, Patti Williams, of Homecare Resources Now.

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Dennis Gill: Patti , your rich background in hospital and home care and running a home care agency means you have owned skills like

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Dennis Gill: customer service, coaching, planning process improvement and even time building.

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Dennis Gill: You know, retention.

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Patti Williams : Yes.

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Dennis Gill: And training aren’t optional. They are foundational.

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Dennis Gill: Alright, so.

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Patti Williams : Yes.

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Dennis Gill: Our topic for today is policy power. How strong procedures drive better home care. So you’ve helped agencies through interim management, restructuring startups and ensured compliance from local to national levels. And we’d like to know more about how thoughtful procedures became the backbone of your success.

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Dennis Gill: So stay tuned folks. It gets practical and powerful welcome to the podcast Patti .

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Patti Williams : Thank you so much. Well, first, st I’d like to say I do have a lot of experience, and it was gained along the way.

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Patti Williams : I was an Ibmer for many years, and then I became a nurse and started a Home Care agency. So I was 3 years new to healthcare when I started the Home Care Agency. So when I was with that, corporation, procedures were everything.

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Patti Williams : And when I left I thought I would never use any of those things again. But as I started to set up my office I remember some of the procedures that we had, and they work. I adapted those to the way my office ran, so it really helped me to be efficient, and to run with less overhead and employees because I really organized things very well, and that is what I teach my agencies now.

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Patti Williams : So I feel like the foundation is procedures. If you have that down because the business runs so quickly, it’s so fast you never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next. So if you have your procedures in place.

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Patti Williams : if you get behind, say, assisting a client or a situation that one day, then the next day. You can just get right back on track, because everything has a place. Put it in its place, and the procedures and policies are set up for that. So I’m a big proponent of that. That was the reason that I was successful in home care.

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Dennis Gill: Oh, rightly said, rightly said, and it would really help our listeners from your vast experience and vast knowledge that you have regarding this particular topic that we’re going to discuss today. So I’ll straightaway jump in with the 1st question that we have for you. So what 1st policies should a new agency prioritize to ensure compliance and consistency from day. One very important.

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Patti Williams : Well, the 1st policy should be to be familiar with the policies that your agency is supposed to run on.

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Dennis Gill: I.

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Patti Williams : See that agencies from time to time they’ll have a set of policies, but they don’t really know what’s in it. So the management needs to really be familiar with those policies. And basically, I always like to divide home care up into 2 major categories, the clients and the employees. And I see them running parallel to each other. Each of

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Patti Williams : both of them are just as important as the other, and that you’re cross hibernating between the 2 all the time. So if you have great procedures set up for your hiring, you’re gonna have good people. You’re hiring and your training. And then when you bring on a client if you bring them on with a very good assessment.

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Patti Williams : and you know exactly what they need. A great care plan. Then you can match those individuals up, and you will have a whole lot less problems and issues if you hire well, and if you assess well with your clients.

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Patti Williams : so, having procedures for hiring, making sure that you follow all the rules and regulations and the guidelines.

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Patti Williams : and making sure that all of those audit points are hit every time on hiring. Then you’re good in that area. And then with most States, of course, all States have some requirements for clients, but just make sure that you hit all of the things that keep a client safe that make sure that you have everything you need to make sure that client gets all the care that they need safely.

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Dennis Gill: So the key point can be hiring. We can say, 1st thing would be the hiring, because if hiring is good, everything is done, then obviously, your clients would be safe, and if they are following all the procedures laid down by the agency so

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Dennis Gill: prioritizing the hiring feature listeners, please take a note of that.

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Dennis Gill: What’s the optimal way to weave policy training into ongoing caregiver development? According to you.

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Patti Williams : Yes, I

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Patti Williams : had to adapt. If I had a policy that said, even if it was just a hipaa policy. One thing that I did was Hipaa was there, and the A’s have to really participate in that. I actually broke it down to their daily work.

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Dennis Gill: Things like.

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Patti Williams : If you’re on your phone.

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Patti Williams : you should not talk about your client. If you have to take a phone call, you should make sure that there’s no information that’s given that relates to your client personally just little things. You have to really break those policies down and look at what an aide is doing from day to day in their daily work.

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Patti Williams : If they have paperwork, say a care plan or something that’s on paper, or maybe even on their phone. No one should be allowed to see that even family members. So when you’re training age, you have to go right to

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Patti Williams : the source of the daily things that they look at and explain it

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Patti Williams : in a way that they can understand and interpret it for their work. If you just say you, you just need to follow hipaa. Well, what does that mean to me.

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Patti Williams : you know, and then you think of those things that they need to be cognizant of at all times and give it to them on that level. And that’s always true with training aids.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Dennis Gill: that would be. That would be. And obviously, and these things, if they are. Again, the main topic, as about our topic of the day is policies and procedures. If it’s laid down correctly for the team, I think it’s the backbone of the business. Any business we can say, not the home care. It’s the backbone for any business.

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Patti Williams : Absolutely, it definitely is. And with home care

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Patti Williams : you, whatever policies you have in your policies and procedures, if you are ever surveyed or audited. They’re gonna make sure you’re following your own policy.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Patti Williams : So you’ve got to be familiar with what’s in there? Because they’ll say, What is your policy on hiring? And they start to look at the different items that you have, then you certainly don’t want to miss something that’s your own policy. And those policies initially were written according to the rules and regulations. So it should all gel together, but just making sure that you know what’s in your policies, and that you’re following that because that will be the measuring stick that you’ll be measured by.

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Dennis Gill: Correct, correct, and linked to this, my next question would be that with local, state and national regulations, how should agencies, design policies that adapt

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Dennis Gill: across jurisdictions.

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Patti Williams : Well, there’s when usually you start with your State policies, and a lot of those are going to have some things that may be Federal, or whatever like some States will say, you need to follow all policies or rules

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Patti Williams : or state, federal, local, whatever that’s part of your edit is to make sure that you do all of that.

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Dennis Gill: Got it.

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Patti Williams : So if if an agency has a policy for the State, it may miss something like a lot of policies. Don’t say what the labor law is.

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Patti Williams : You know that you have to pay after 40 h. So that’s when you go to the Labor Board. But you you need to stay in line with that. And then, if something on a Federal level changes, you need to stay up to date with those policies so that you don’t violate any one of them, because they’re all gonna come up in case there’s a situation that needs to be handled.

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Dennis Gill: So they have to take care about the State and the national regulations. What are being changed and keeping them updated about themselves, about everything.

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Patti Williams : Them updated because they are changing. And we know we’ve seen lots of changes here lately. But we just need to be sure that

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Patti Williams : we? We’re staying abreast of the changes and making sure it’s incorporated into our agencies for the things that we do.

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Dennis Gill: Rightly said, and how should managers introduce new procedures to minimize resistance and maximize buy-in from caregivers and staff.

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Patti Williams : Yes, this really came to mind when I think about that. When electronic visit verification was introduced in North Carolina, there was some resistance on the part of aides that had worked for many, many years.

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Dennis Gill: Okay.

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Patti Williams : And I was actually told by a couple of agency owners that some of their aides that have been around for many years, that rather than learn how to document in an electronic visit verification system. They decided that they would leave the business.

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Dennis Gill: Oh!

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Patti Williams : And I said, No, no, we cannot afford to lose anyone from this business, because even as Aids age, there’s still jobs that they can do so. I think the answer to that is that you make sure the training is on their level. If you have an aide that really got it and knows how to do the electronic visit. Verification

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Patti Williams : maybe make that person the point person to go and sit with the individual that thinks that they can’t learn it and teach them on a very basic level.

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Patti Williams : But whatever you need to do, one on one or whatever, if it’s a new procedure, if it’s a new system.

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Patti Williams : You need to really think about that. At that level at the caregiver level it is different. And you need to go the extra mile and teach from a very, very basic level, not condescending. But it needs to be basic, and the aids appreciate it.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah, they do. They do. Because obviously this would help. This helped Aids. Also, when Evv came in exact number of hours, they don’t need to double check with the agencies about everything. Everything is documented, so I think it does help them. But whenever a change is there, you also are aware about it. A change is there. It takes some time to people to adapt it, but when it is adapted rightly, as you said again, the training is provided correctly for that, so it obviously moves into the right direction

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Dennis Gill: correctly, sir.

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Patti Williams : Yes, and I think this particular agency did not think on that level. All the way down to the caregiver level. They were like, you’ve got a phone, you know how to use it. Just do it. Well, some of those

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Patti Williams : you know more mature aides didn’t even have a smartphone.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Patti Williams : So. So there were lots of things that needed to be managed. So if someone is going to implement a system, just think about that upfront. What about those 4 or 5 A’s that have been with you for 15 years? They do a great job. How do you keep them in the fold, because we, as I said in the industry, we really can’t afford to lose anybody that can still do a decent job.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah, I know, because I’ve been into this industry now for the past 6 years with care smart 360. I’ve done demonstrations with multiple agencies, and I’ve seen many agencies saying this thing when they that some of their caregivers, they are of an age that they don’t use the smartphones correctly, or they don’t

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Dennis Gill: know to use it, but still they are pretty eager to learn about it, so they always wanted that we should share some specific sessions with them where they can learn it one by one, so some of them are very eager to use it, but it completely depends how the agency owner lets them know that this is very useful for them.

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Patti Williams : Exactly, and I think it takes a little bit of one-on-one or a small group.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Patti Williams : Maybe if you train a group of 3 and you allow them to go slowly, because once they get it, they’ve got it.

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Dennis Gill: You just.

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Patti Williams : Can’t throw it at them, and you know they may just get frustrated.

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Patti Williams : So I’m sure that you all.

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Patti Williams : as you said, you’ve done many of those trainings. So you definitely know, you know what works best.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah, right? Right?

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Dennis Gill: And the last thing, Patti , last question from my side would be that, what key metrics can agencies monitor to evaluate if their procedures are genuinely improving, care, quality, and business performance, according to you.

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Patti Williams : Well, the the things I really used to watch was, what kind of complaints are you getting, or are you getting complaints.

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Patti Williams : From your client, base.

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Dennis Gill: Okay.

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Patti Williams : That’s that’s a metric that that you can look at, because if individuals are calling in with complaints, you can track that complaint all the way back to what would have prevented it.

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Patti Williams : you know. Was it the hiring? Was it the training? So that that’s a key one, and also making sure that

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Patti Williams : if if a client does call in with a complaint that is always addressed.

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Patti Williams : one of the other things that’s really important is missed visits. I really used to track my missed visits. I knew exactly how many hours we were supposed to do in a week or in a day, and when missed visits came up, you know. Is it because someone was ill? Do we not have sufficient backup? Those are metrics also that just kind of really stand out

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Patti Williams : on a day to day basis. And then are you keeping your clients long? Term? I think that is key. I usually tell agency owners when you get this client in. You want to keep that client until they

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Patti Williams : have to go to a facility or they expire. You do not want to be losing clients because of the care that was provided or the lack thereof.

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Dennis Gill: Yeah.

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Patti Williams : So once you get that client, your goal is to keep them. Now, if they move out of the area, of course you know, but you don’t want them leaving for lack of care. Those are some of the metrics that I think you can. Once those things happen, you can look under it to see what the factors were that really caused it.

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Dennis Gill: Okay, okay.

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Dennis Gill: so thank you. Thank you, Patti , for sharing your expertise. Today, I completely understand that this would be very useful for our audience and to our lovely audience. Thank you for tuning in today and until next time. I’m Dennis Gill, signing off. Thank you. Thank you, Patti .

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Patti Williams : Thank you, Dennis.