The 6 Talks from Home Care 100 We Can't Stop Thinking About

Some call it the Super Bowl of home care, the nexus of industry knowledge – Home Care 100. It’s an event that attracts the biggest names in the post-acute world. Last week, Ava sponsored our first Home Care 100 conference, hosted by Lincoln Healthcare Leadership in Scottsdale, Arizona. We met with providers from franchises like Griswold and Senior Helpers , providing care to over 3 million clients and patients nationwide.

In between desert tours and cupcake wars with attendees, we had the opportunity to hear from an incredible group of speakers across the care continuum. This year’s theme was Navigating Radical Transformation, and here are the six talks we haven’t stopped thinking about since:

1. Consumers as Our True North with Kathy Gramling from EY

Kathy Gramling from EY painted a stark contrast at Home Care 100. In our personal lives, technology is a breeze - one-click checkouts, instant streaming. At work, it's a different story. Thirty screens just to start an employee on a long-open shift.

This gap, once a mere inconvenience, has become unacceptable. “Digital technology, once a novelty, is now essential in our daily lives for convenience and enriched experiences,” she said. This includes everyone in the healthcare chain – patients, clients, caregivers, clinicians.

For Ava, we obsess over making the consumer experience between providers and their workforce an absolute delight. We're striving for more than just job satisfaction; we're making the work process itself a delight. The belief? When staff enjoy their work, patients and clients benefit equally.

2. The Key to Home Care Growth - Effortless Experiences with Ryan Iwamoto , President & Co-Founder at 24 Hour Home Care

Since launching 24 Hour Home Care Care in 2008, Ryan has witnessed a dramatic transformation in the home care industry. His company stands out for its scale, stretching over four states with over 13,000 caregivers and patients. The secret to this expansive growth? A commitment to delivering an effortless experience, a concept inspired by the eponymous book .

This concept of an effortless experience is grounded in the idea of making customer interactions seamless, measured by the Customer Effort Score (CES). The aim is to make dealing with 24 Hour Home Care as natural and easy as breathing.

To achieve this, the company has honed in on nine key skills designed to boost their CES:

• Adapting to various communication styles.
• Demonstrating advocacy for clients.
• Practicing active listening.
• Proactively offering additional information.
• Acknowledging and understanding client concerns.
• Employing positive language.
• Offering alternative solutions.
• Identifying and seizing opportunities.
• Seamlessly positioning services.

This focused approach has yielded impressive results. Over two quarters, 24 Hour Home Care has seen its CES score soar from 49% to 88%, alongside a notable jump in their Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 10 to 37. This remarkable improvement underscores the power of an effortless experience in driving growth in the home care sector.

We love to say data-driven growth at Ava, and Ryan’s talk inspired our team to order a copy of The Effortless Experience as well.

3. You Need a Chief Experience Officer

Panel Featuring: Jaya Kumar, Chief Digital & Experiences Officer at BAYADA Home Health Care, Kristen Duell, EVP Experience & Innovation at FirstLight Home Care, Mark Privett, VP Design at Honor, and Chad Ghastin, VP Consumer Experience at VNS Health

In a world where price and salary are commodities, it's the experience that sets you apart. Your patients, clients, and staff – their choice to stay or go hinges on the experience they receive.

The panel's core message was clear: every team member is a chief experience officer. Each person embodies your brand. It's not just a title; it's a responsibility shared by all.

At Ava, this resonated deeply. We've built our platform with this philosophy at its core. By enhancing the experience for our workforce, we aim to amplify the results for everyone involved.

4. Tech-Driven Innovation: Seize the Care Moment.

Healthcare's reality has shifted – from hands-on care to managing digital interfaces. Nurses and schedulers didn’t sign up for a life behind screens. But there's a silver lining: a tech revolution is emerging.

This revolution is about liberating providers from tedious tasks. We heard from three trailblazers:

• Ohio’s Hospice & Metta Health are using wearable devices for remote patient monitoring, easing the delivery of care and reducing admin work.
• Ennoble Care has crafted software to streamline coordination across various care settings.
• Devoted Guardians introduced a tool for continuous communication, accessible anytime for clients, caregivers, and admins.

The takeaway? Embrace technology as a partner in the experience of care. At Ava, while we focus on top-notch workforce engagement, we keep track of other innovative tech solutions embraced by the healthcare community. Let us know what you’re interested in and we’ll send you recommendations.

5. Creating Clinical Capacity by Building Your Workforce Pipeline

In the face of America's healthcare labor shortage, The New Jewish Home is making strides with their SkillSpring program. Led by Dr. Jeffrey Farber, CEO, and Nicole Cash, director, they're not just filling jobs. They're changing lives. SkillSpring has trained hundreds, many from challenging backgrounds – 42% were homeless, 31% lacked a high school diploma. This initiative isn't just about healthcare staffing; it's a fight against poverty and a step towards societal betterment. The New Jewish Home's approach is direct, effective, and transformative, reflecting a deeper understanding of the intertwined nature of social issues and workforce needs.

At Ava, we’re excited about this for two reasons: first, the obvious benefit of more caregivers joining the workforce; second, we’re increasingly seeing providers look to Ava as a means to connect existing staff with training programs that will accelerate their careers. We’ve seen agencies experience a 10% to 40% increase in applicants and post-90 day retention by offering career advancement programming. SkillSpring is a model we can all learn from.

6. Innovative Approaches with Operations

Shane Donaldson, CEO of Pinnacle Home Care, recently highlighted a groundbreaking shift at Pinnacle: employing AI for OASIS documentation. Clinicians and administrators, long burdened by paperwork, crave more time for actual care. Traditionally, nearly an hour per clinician is lost to form-filling. Pinnacle's response? A bold foray into voice-activated AI tools. These innovations enable clinicians to complete documentation in a fraction of the time, even while on the move between patient visits.

This leap into AI utilization marks a significant stride in the evolution of healthcare. Pinnacle's pioneering approach is just the beginning. The next few years promise a radical transformation, steering healthcare away from its paper-heavy past towards a future where automation reigns supreme. The ultimate goal? Freeing caregivers to refocus on what truly matters: patient care.