Every day in the United States, another 10,000 baby boomers turn 65—a growth trend that began in 2010 and will continue until 2030. Approximately 70 percent of our nation’s seniors will require some type of long-term patient care or support services. With these statistics in mind, it’s not surprising that the home health care sector is growing at an unprecedented rate. Home health care in various situations, from post-surgery rehabilitation to hospice care, has been proven to facilitate good outcomes and cost efficiency. The New England Journal of Medicine published an article in 2010, the year the U.S. health reform plan launched, stating, “Ultimately, health care organizations that do not adapt to the home care imperative risk becoming irrelevant.”
Opportunities and Challenges
The heightened need for home health care has led to a greater demand for workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the home health industry will see a 69 percent growth in employment through 2020. This demand brings both opportunies and challenges:
- Foremost, home health care organizations must be able to recruit and retain employees who will provide excellent care and be positive representatives of their brands.
- Next, organizations must deliver consistent outcomes in increasingly complex environments, while embracing health care’s transparency requirements by promoting these outcomes to consumers and providers.
- Lastly, home health care organizations must seek and foster partnerships with referring providers.
These three objectives can be furthered by one key program: a learning management system with a blended approach that incorporates online training alongside methods such as traditional classroom teaching and small discussion groups. While home health care organizations have traditionally provided ongoing training, one primary focus has been ensuring their nurses and certified nursing assistants are meeting regulatory requirements. Offering more robust training outside of the regulatory realm, however, can provide far greater opportunities for success—both for individuals and the organization. Training can be a valuable tool to help talented and motivated professionals grow, attain new skill sets and remain loyal assets to their organization.
Equipping and Empowering Staff
As home health care grows, a comprehensive training program that allows staff to learn complex and robust best practices will equip them with the skills to achieve clinical excellence, and in turn, create competitive differentiation for the organization. The ideal learning management system for home health includes the following components.
1. A foundation of clinical content developed by industry experts Research in areas that home health care providers address on a daily basis is constantly yielding new protocols and treatment options. Best practices are in a perpetual state of improvement, and maintaining a library of course content developed and updated by industry experts is exceedingly necessary. As advancements continue, the home health care team must stay on the forefront and be able to apply its new knowledge in varied settings.
2. Training methods customized to home health care environment The incidence of multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) has increased in all ages, with nearly 1 of 3 Americans diagnosed with MCCs. This percentage is markedly higher in the senior population, as nearly 80 percent of Americans ages 65 and older have MCCs. In any patient care setting, MCCs lead to greater complexity in care plans; however, the home health care environment can be particularly challenging. As the Agency for Research Healthcare and Quality points out, patients with MCCs face daily challenges as a result of their diagnoses. For instance, 45 percent of patients with MCCs have problems with routine activities such as bathing, getting dressed or grocery shopping. The home health care team is in a unique position to identify situations where patients with MCCs may need help with these challenges. Overall, the home health care team can play a vital role in ensuring the patient is progressing properly in a care plan—in both clinical and daily lifestyle aspects. Training related to MCCs can enable providers to recognize when patients need additional therapy or other support related to nutrition or mobility. It can provide in-depth knowledge related to frequently co-occurring disorders, such as depression, and can instruct staff regarding ongoing patient and family interactions with a diagnosis such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. With more complex content, a two-step training approach provides staff with the ability to review information and put it into practice. For instance, staff may take an online course on Alzheimer’s care, and then have a follow-up lunch-and-learn discussion group. During this group session, they can discuss scenarios they might face, different approaches and what actions would work best. Alternatively, the second step after an online course may be an interactive scenario, giving staff the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned by acting out different approaches.
3. Online learning to enable cost-effective consistency Online courses are a cost-efficient way for staff members to take training at their own pace. Online coursework can greatly reduce expenses related to travel, overtime and taking staff out of the field. By selecting the optimal delivery system for various content, organizational leadership can offer the ideal learning environment while enabling cost savings when appropriate.
4. Centralized reporting and management With their highly mobile workforces, home health care organizations can benefit from a centralized portal to manage, monitor and track training. This approach enables easier, more efficient compliance with state and federal regulations. Through a centralized view of employee coursework, leadership can identify staff members with initiative and leadership qualities. In turn, supervisors can work with these employees to establish a training plan that enables them to gain additional management or clinical skill sets. By leveraging the learning management system, leadership is not only identifying talent from within, but also proactively fostering loyalty and taking steps to ensure these staff members remain with the organization.
Great Responsibility and Great Rewards
Patients frequently prefer home health care because it affords a peaceful and private environment. This level of privacy, however, necessitates that staff be especially vigilant, conscientious and knowledgeable. In an inpatient setting, numerous employees may interact with a patient and have opportunities to notice myriad details such as mobility, speech, eating habits or medication adherence. In a home health care environment, the patient may only interact with a few people a week—the members of his or her care team. This can create a more challenging scenario, but it can also be especially rewarding. As home health care meets new demands and treats more complex patients, it will truly be staffed by health care heroes: conscientious personnel committed to ongoing learning, enabling patients to ultimately be where they want to be—in their homes.
