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Home Care 100 2022 Recap

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The annual Lincoln Healthcare Leadership’s Home Care 100 Conference is a pivotal opportunity to explore industry trends and challenges. A major focus at this year’s conference was on building a more efficient, sustainable future in healthcare to enable home care providers to invest more in clinical staff and patient care.  

This year also marked a major milestone for Lincoln Healthcare: the 20th anniversary of Home Care 100! 

The AlayaCare executive team was excited to attend and be able to connect in person with the diverse agencies and providers. If you missed the chance to catch Home Care 100 live, AlayaCare’s Kelly Bishop is here to give you a behind-the-scenes look. 

With the massive surge in reliance on home-based care since 2020, the consensus is that the future is very bright for this industry. There is considerable attention from funders who see the exponentially growing value of this care model. The first keynote speaker was CMS Director Seema Verma, who described the government’s vision for Home and Community-Based Services and what it means for providers. With an aging population globally, governments must react and plan accordingly to meet these emerging needs. This theme was carried through Home Care 100, where various sessions targeted Washington’s agenda from topics such as VBP (value-based purchasing) to Biden’s spending plan and the resulting impacts on home-based care. 

Key topics and discussions at Home Care 100 2022

Moving past COVID-19

Based on industry trends, the post-COVID horizon shows a shift to home care and telehealth. One lingering question on everybody’s minds: how will (or should) their organizations change? The pandemic has already caused massive changes in consumer preference, acuity, technology, wages, government policies, risk, partnerships, and more. Agencies are forced to rethink strategy, innovation, and leadership in this time of change.  

Tackling the caregiver shortage

The inevitable topic of the caregiver shortage flooded conversations at Home Care 100. Three “big-picture” solutions came to pass 

  1. A change in culture is needed to retain talent and improve their business. Having a strong authentic culture is a necessity for agencies to thrive.       
  2. A new develop-your-own (DYO) mindset trend has emerged in order to find new talent. Organizations must tweak the core assumptions of an alreadychallenged business model.  
  3. Attracting workers to home care through collective action on items such as compensation, recruitment and retention, education and training, and immigration.   

Marquee Speaker at Home Care 100: Al Gore

One major highlight of the event was the marquee speaker, Al Gore. Adrian Schauer, co-founder, and CEO of AlayaCare, had the honor of introducing the former U.S. Vice President at Home Care 100 this year. Gore packed his keynote address with valuable insights surrounding social sustainability, climate change, and how home-based care is central to a larger sustainable healthcare economy. 

A sustainable healthcare system is one that provides the right care, in the right place, at the right time – to everyone, he said. 

The climate crisis is also a health crisis,” said Gore, “climate change is the greatest of the challenges we face, but it is not the only aspect of sustainability – social and racial justice, good jobs, health equity – all of these are a key part of the picture and are going to come under more and more scrutiny as we move forward. And the opportunity this creates is what I call the Global Sustainability Revolution.” 

The three pillars of the Global Sustainability Revolution 

 (1) Reducing waste and driving efficiency

The carbon impact of healthcare is large – equivalent to over 500 coal-fired power plants. And within that, home care is a significant contributor. Agencies must search for sustainable approaches to business – benefiting both the planet and the bottom line. When looking at how the health and home care industry integrates with sustainability, both home care promotion strategies and sustainable development strategies must be given equal precedence. (Article)       

Home care in relation to the sustainable revolution must look at all levels, local, regional and global – and what impacts are made by policies and initiatives.  

Through strategic investments in technology, the home care sector can apply digital tools, reduce energy consumption (through things like route optimization and scheduling) and retool workplaces for greater productivity.   

(2) The Care Worker Crisis

The shortage of healthcare workers means every home care provider in the country is struggling to find enough staff to simply fulfill the existing workload. 

Technology can improve efficiencies allowing more staff to focus on providing care rather than logistics and back-office tasks. Paperwork and bureaucracy get in the way of caring. 

Address short- and long-term capacity pressures by implementing technologies that can maximize existing assets and skills. Caregiver shortage persists while the demand for in-home care has increased. Improving the system to increase caregiver satisfaction will help with retention while using technology to reduce back-office tasks will open more assets to be allocated to care.   

(3) Improving Patient Outcomes

Home care providers have taken the first step in the sustainability revolution by embracing technology to produce better outcomes and provide more eco-friendly services. “Our innovative technology helps run the back office more efficiently, allowing care staff to focus on outcomes instead of paperwork,” said Adrian Schauer.  

“Artificial intelligence can go far to support back-office operations and performance, but I think it will go further, using predictive analytics that can also effectively monitor and analyze clinical data, helping providers deliver more efficient care and improve outcomes,” said Gore.

“These twin revolutions – of Sustainability and Digitization – are allowing us to solve some of our most profound problems by giving executive teams the ability to manage all aspects of their business with the same efficiency IT companies have been able to management bits of information, Gore said.  

This expansion opens an opportunity to embed sustainable innovations in the future of home care.   

  • Healthcare providers should focus on advancing health equity, expanding access to care, driving high-quality, personalized care, and promoting affordability and sustainability.  
  • There are many opportunities to improve the design and delivery of services globally, including implementing sustainable approaches to business.  
  • Opportunities arise when one looks to adopt care models that support positive environmental outcomes, technology that improves efficiencies and quality of service, and initiatives that help care workers achieve better outcomes. 

How AlayaCare software supports global sustainability  

As Al Gore described, the climate crisis is a health crisis. At AlayaCare, we take the environment just as seriously as healthcare. The AlayaCare software platform’s scheduling and route optimization tool reduces your agency’s carbon footprint by reducing travel time and determining the ideal workers to perform visits in the best order each day.       

“Immediately, we saw a 15% improvement in our mileage costs, which is huge from a financial standpoint” Tammy Hehn, Director of Client Services, Access Health. 

A key differentiator of the AlayaCare platform is its AI-based predictive models that enable business leaders to spend less time on manual tasks, and more time focused on growing their organizations in line with the rising demand for home care.  

AlayaLabs’ machine learning capabilities streamline travel times and optimize routing to improve travel costs and incorporate mapping for better staffing and client coordination. On average, the system helps save 30% in travel time. 

“Employee shortages and retention continue to be one of the biggest headaches for all home health providers. AlayaCare is uniquely positioned to help tackle common pain points related to scheduling challenges and balancing patient and caregiver preferences,” said Adrian Schauer, CEO & Founder, AlayaCare.   

Scheduling and Route Optimization tool by AlayaCare

Features reduce coordination, transit time, and stress for frontline home care workers 

  • Create more efficient schedules and routes 
  • Determine the ideal care worker to perform visits in the best order each day      
  • Reduce your agency’s carbon footprint through reduced travel 
  • Improve the continuity and quality of care provided 
  • Analyze and identify staffing efficiencies to create the capacity needed to meet the growing demand 

AlayaCare employee satisfaction data is easily consumed via client-specific dashboards, which measure employee retention and business performance. The dashboard highlights how an agency is performing around its retention metrics and flags those that are known to be indicators of at-risk caregivers.    

“We know that inconsistent hours, poor scheduling, and lag time between hiring and deploying a new employee can greatly detract from employee engagement. With our business intelligence capabilities, we’re able to help clients identify retention metrics and provide daily reports so that managers can act on the data and reduce the likelihood of an employee leaving.” – Naomi Goldapple 

The AlayaCare platform also houses a family portal, which provides clients, providers, and authorized family members secure access to parts of their AlayaCare client health record to stay connected and engage in their care plan anywhere, at any time. 

With real-time updates, clients have up-to-the-second information on schedules, care plans, payments, and more. Our integrated family portal helps make clients active participants in their own care plans.        

  • Dashboard insights proved to improve overall employee satisfaction by 30% 
  • Intervention strategies accounted for 22% of caregivers moving out of the high-risk category 

“As schedules become more automated, they can become more optimized. Matching the right patients with the right care workers and the right routes – improving care, and reducing cost and wastage. Studies from our portfolio company, AlayaCare, have shown that AI-driven route and schedule optimization can cut the number of miles driven by over 35%,” said Gore. 

Related content: AlayaCare using predictive analytics to increase caregiver retention 

AlayaCare offers an end-to-end home care solution equipped with all the tools you need to stay ahead of evolving industry trends and both client and employee expectations. If you’re looking to become an industry leader, request a demo today.

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