People, Process, Purpose: The 2026 Home Care Playbook

People, Process, Purpose: The 2026 Home Care Playbook

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Hello dear listeners. Welcome to CaresSmartz360 On Air. I’m Erin Cahill, Sales Account Executive at CareSmartz360.Get ready for a game-changing conversation on people, process, purpose, the 2026 home care playbook. Today we’re joined by Ashley Watts, Director of Home Care Operations at Elite Homecare, Day Centers, and Transportation. With a nursing background and deep experience in hospice, palliative care, and operational excellence, Ashley knows what it takes to deliver dignity, drive

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quality outcomes, and build teams that thrive. Tune in as she shares practical strategies to improve care, empower staff, and lead with heart in 2026. Welcome to the podcast, Ashley. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> So, we’ll jump right into it. How do you define the people, process, purpose framework and why is it essential for home care success in 2026? >> I’m really excited for 2026. We’ve been doing a lot of strategic planning. Um, and it’s always fun to have a fresh new

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start. Um, people that give you the capacity, right? We need people for growth. We need people for staffing, people to take care of the process. That gives you that consistency. That’s the machine that keeps us moving. And purpose gives that machine endurance. So, I’m constantly putting that purpose at the front of everything we do to keep us moving, to keep that at the forefront of our decision- making. Um, there’s really not a lot of organized chaos in home care. Um, we’re not just

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surviving that pressure on a daily basis. We have to be built for it. And elite, we definitely are. Um, in our 14th year of business, as we continue to scale, we’re really relying on those three key factors, but most primarily on people. It is very important to have those three key factors to keep moving forward. >> Absolutely. And what’s the biggest people related challenge agencies face today and how can leaders turn it into a strength? >> Boy, that is a loaded question. Um the

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The biggest challenge would most likely be consistency. Um you can’t just hire, you need to hire for reliability. You need to hire for what we need. Um and that’s come with some challenges, right? We can’t just hire somebody that um has experience because that doesn’t necessarily correlate with reliability. Um at Elite, we’ve built in a lot of systems to help with that. Um we have a lot of people that really want to care but don’t have a lot of experience but they are

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reliable and they have that purpose in front like we were talking about. Um so we developed a program called core training that’s coaching, observation, and real life empowerment. So we bring our caregivers into each location where we have a care room that they can train on the hor lift, train on the gate valve, um or even talk about some of the social challenges there can be. You know, our clients want to have engaging conversations with our clients and some of those topics can be triggering.

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Coaching our caregivers on how to handle those conversations judiciously so that we’re appropriate but still providing that support and companionship and engagement is really important. Um, so we really need to stop the turnover by supporting our staff and developing staff that are confident in what they do. Um, so that’s a monthly program we offer. Um, just to ensure that everybody feels confident in their dayto-day. >> Oh, that’s great. Yeah, absolutely. And which operational processes have the

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greatest impact on quality of care and client satisfaction? >> There it’s really hard to narrow down to just one. Um, if I would say there’s one thing that I think about mainly when I’m making decisions like that or answering that question, it’s really it’s the things that clients feel every week that we do that really help create that operational excellence. Um, scheduling, reliability, and communication. That’s really imperative. If there’s a scheduling change,

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communicating that in a timely manner. If a client has a special request, we want to meet that need as best that we possibly can. And the more we know, the more we can plan to communicate that care plan accuracy. Um, our nur nurses are out in the field constantly rechecking our clients, reassessing the situation, making sure that that care plan is accurate and efficient so that our caregivers are delivering the best care that they can. um a strong onboarding matching that not only making them feel confident from the start with

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Our core training, our orientation, is an easy onboarding that is not too complex for the caregivers to understand and feel inundated with the red tape, so to speak, but then also match that with the quality match during that onboarding process. We need to learn about that caregiver. So that way when we assign them to that shift, we’ve matched them with a good matchup. That symbiotic process really leads to success in the future. Um and then quality assurance always with the quality assurance,

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right? We’ve created a quality assurance process to have a lot of touch points with our clients. Constantly making sure that they’re satisfied and giving them every opportunity to give us positive or negative feedback so that we can move forward in the right direction. Clients don’t really judge your intention, you know, they judge your consistency, >> right? Yeah. No, the touch points are so important. I can imagine. And how can agencies build a culture where purpose drives daily decision making and not

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just mission statements? >> Yeah, that is a tough one. Um, purpose really shows um and it shows you have true purpose when you have that consistency when you’re making those excellent decisions all the time. And really purpose helps you filter your decisions, right? So if you’re having that the intentions of the client and the caregiver, that good matchup, safe quality care at all times, if you put that at the forefront of every decision with every process we establish, then that will really help drive your

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purpose. Um, I also really like to tell real stories and I like to tell them a lot to my team. Um I’m not as privileged as some of my retail managers that get more of the day in and day out, but when someone shares a story with me that of a client or a caregiver um caregiver going above and beyond. You know, right now in South Carolina, we’re about to get a really big storm. Um they said it’s the worst we’ve had in years. I’m sure you’ve heard. Um I’m so proud of the

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work that my team is currently doing to make sure every client is okay, that they have a plan. Um if power goes out, do they have enough food in the home? Are they oxygen dependent? You know, things like that. Those really drive us much more than any mission statement on our website. >> That’s huge. Yeah. And Ashley, what practical steps can small or midsize agencies take now to futureproof care delivery systems? >> Well, that’s something that’s been something I’ve had to learn myself. Um,

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You know, I’ve never been in a leadership role with this many locations. Um, when I first came back to Elite, um, uh, we had seven locations. In the past three years, we’ve added, uh, several more. We’re now at 15. So, you know, really, you have to build your agency so that the processes stand on their own. Um, when I walk into any one of our locations, all of our processes are the same to produce that scalability, so that you can continue to grow. And the growth can be messy at times. So having

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The processes in place first are really a piece of mind for our team. When they’re having those chaotic moments, they can lean on those, return back to those to ensure we’re communicating, we’re closing the loop, and continuing to move forward with forward momentum. Um it’s a constant uphill battle. I’m always reflecting on our processes, standardizing our onboarding training, and putting in the core training. You know, that’s something I just added in the last year or so. Before that, it was a

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more informal process. Um, but I’ve really tried to solidify and strengthen all of our processes so that we can continue to lean on them as we continue to scale. And Ashley, last question for you here. I know you said you’re excited um for the year ahead. So, looking ahead, what trends or shifts should home care leaders prepare for in 2026 to stay competitive and compassionate? >> That’s um definitely through scale, right? Um there’s a lot of somewhat controversial hot topics for 2026

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trends. I would say AI is at the forefront of that hot topic. Um we’re definitely dabbling in that and really utilizing it well and so far we’ve had a very good experience. I would say technology and efficiency is going to be matched. Um you are not going to be efficient without the proper technology. Um so right now we’re evaluating all of our um technology. Are we using the right platforms? are they serving us and are they serving all of our service lines because we don’t do just home

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care. You know, we have the adult day centers and transportation. So, we’re a unique model that does ask more of our software than some of our other competitors. Um, and then streamlining that technology so that uh it will separate what we’re busy with and what we’re effective with. Um, and just optimizing that, making sure my staff feels confident in that. I really think that is going to be one of the biggest things at the forefront of 26. Along those same lines, um we are a heavy Medicaid provider. Um we are one of our

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passion is serving the underserved and I’m sure you’re aware, you know, there’s unfortunately some se several states have experienced cuts. We’re lucky enough not to have that. Um there’s rumors we might hopefully get a rate increase, but time will tell. Um, creating that financial efficiency as well so that we can continue to pay our caregivers at the top of that scale and provide that quality care and keep our staff in that respect. So there’s I definitely think budget is going to be

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Another um big topic for this year. Um, but effective communication utilizing our technology and our AI platform and software is going to be at the top of the list. >> Perfect. Ashley, thank you so much. Um, that was really actionable and we really appreciate your time. And for all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in and we will see you again soon on CareSmartz360 On Air. Thank you so much.