Tag: Home Care

Star Awards Shine Spotlight on Home Care’s Best

Last month, the Alliance recognized six outstanding individuals as our 2019 Home Care Stars. These are their stories.

Last month, the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts gathered the industry at Granite Links in Quincy to honor six amazing individuals who represent the best of home care.

(L-R: Nicole Geddes, Me McBride, Vinette Tyme, Gerry Sanderson, Robin Pelletier, Sandy Hurley)

Since 1989, this fantastic event has celebrated the hard work of individuals and organizations who exemplify home care’s best values. More importantly, awardees are nominated by their colleagues and supervisors; winners are then selected by the Alliance’s Membership Committee.

Here’s a look at this year’s awardees, with excerpts from their nominations:

Me McBride, South Shore VNA, Aide of the Year

Imagine being the family member of a once-strong, determined man whose mind has been crippled by Alzheimer’s. You pray for help, and your prayers are answered in the form of an “earthly angel” named Me McBride.

She enters your home and takes charge with compassion and experience but — most of all — with respect for your loved one. For Me, the patient always comes first.

Vinette Tyme, HouseWorks, Aide of the Year

Vinette is a passionate home health aide, often described by colleagues and clients alike as “a dream” to work with, due to her dedication and exceptional skillset. She has an innate ability to anticipate clients’ needs and form personalized and effective strategies that work for them.

No task is too big or too small for her.

Gerry Sanderson, RN CDP, NVNA and Hospice, Clinician of the Year
Gerry Sanderson, RN CDP

Gerry has cared for hundreds of patients and families in the South Shore and her devotion to her patients is second to none.

Her approachable and positive demeanor is reflected in the way her patients interact with her, creating a safe and nurturing environment for all involved.

Nicole Geddes, LPN, Aberdeen Home Care, Clinician of the Year

Nicole delivers care, no matter what. If there is a need, she is there. She’s a roll-up-your-sleeves nurse, willing to jump-in and help an aide when needed or to manage a crisis in the middle of the night, on a weekend, or on Christmas Day.

She knows what to do and does it with tremendous skill.

Robin Pelletier, RN BSN, Southcoast VNA, Manager of the Year

Robin has successfully led Southcoast VNA’s Supportive Care Center since October 2016, where she guides an interdisciplinary team of 75 people. Her greatest accomplishment has been the extraordinary growth and quality of hospice services, doubling Southcoast’s average daily census and average length of stay.

Sandy Hurley, Commonwealth Clinical Services, Home Care Champion

Sandy embodies everything we value about nursing in the community. She is best known for “doing what needs to be done” from home visits, to setting up clinics, to teaching high school students about healthcare, to playing the piano at just about any function.

This year, Sandy extended her professional talents and skills to the mountains of the Dominican Republic, helping provide over 100 patients a day with health assessments, medications, and critical supplies.

As 2019 comes to a close and the industry prepares for a historic year of changes, the Star Awards allows us to pause and remember the dedicated workforce that makes home care such a success.

Congratulations and thank you to the 2019 Star Award Winners.

The Alliance Revamps Its Advocacy Action Center

The Alliance’s redesigned Advocacy Action Center makes it easier for members to communicate with their elected officials on the pressing issues facing their agencies.

HCA CapitolFor the first time in many years, the Alliance has redesigned its Advocacy Action Center website, offering members an enhanced advocacy experience so they can easily communicate with their elected officials on the pressing issues facing their agencies. This  post will highlight some of the key changes so that you are prepared to take action and make a difference!

Main-Page Scrolling Advocacy Feature

The main Advocacy Action Center page now features a scrolling banner of key advocacy initiatives that the Alliance and its members are working on. The banner has a functioning link which you can click on to bring you directly to the action center to quickly send an email to your elected official.

Main-Page Buttons

Under the scrolling banner, you will see three buttons linking to sub-pages. This organizes the Advocacy Action Center into three easily accessible topics: Legislative Priorities, Testimony/Comments, and Facts & Figures. Note: The Facts & Figures sub-page is currently being updated.

Legislative Priorities Sub-Page

Among the biggest of changes, is our newly designed Legislative Priorities page. For the first time, members now have a centralized landing page which organizes all of the Alliance’s legislative priorities in one place. You’ll see the page is split in half, organized by State and Federal priorities.

You’ll also see that each legislative issue has a brief overview of the issue and the solution that HCA supports. Underneath each blurb are links to download the fact sheets for, or take action on, the issue!

We hope that you will find our new advocacy center easier to use so that you can engage with your elected officials, while focusing on running your agency!

Talking Home Care: Building (and Keeping) a Better Workforce with Technology

Pat Kelleher is joined by CareAcademy’s Helen Adeosun and HouseWorks’s Andrea Cohen to discuss tech solutions to the workforce issues challenging the home care industry.

Helen Adeosun, Andrea Cohen, and Pat Kelleher
Helen Adeosun, Andrea Cohen, and Pat Kelleher

For the 11th episode of the Talking Home Care podcast, we are joined by two home care leaders to talk about solutions to one of the industry’s biggest challenges: recruiting, educating, and retaining care givers in a competitive market.

Helen Adeosun and Andrea Cohen both started their careers in home care as caregivers. Later, Helen would launch CareAcademy, an online learning platform, while Andrea would found HouseWorks, one of the largest private pay home care agencies in Massachusetts. In addition to their personal insights on workforce issues, the two also discuss their companies’ recent collaboration.

(If you’re a return listener from iTunes, please re-subscribe to the podcast; we’ve moved the feed to a new location).

Listen on iTunes
Listen on Google Play Music

 

You may listen to the podcast by clicking either of the podcast images, clicking “play” above, or downloading it directly (Length: 39 minutes; Size: 31 MB). If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a five-star review so others can find it.

Specific topics include:

    • How agencies can attract and keep their best employees by offering a career path to all positions.
    • How a mobile education platform can serve a mobile workforce.
    • How online education streamlines on-boarding and makes time available for hands-on training.
    • How technology — whether for training or other purposes — can give agencies actionable data about their operations.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the executive director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guests: Helen Adeosun is the co-founder and CEO of CareAcademy. Based in Boston, CareAcademy is one of the most innovative online training platforms for the home care industry. Andrea Cohen is the CEO and founder of HouseWorks, one of the largest private care home care agencies in Massachusetts.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

2019 Private Care Guides to Help Families Find Home Care

Now in its 13th edition, the Guide to Private Home Care Services has connected tens of thousands of families with the home care agencies that best meet their needs. While our Resource Directory is intended for professionals who make regular referrals, the Private Care Guides are designed for consumers and are always available at no charge. Choose from among three regional editions:

(Click one of the thumbnails to place your free order).

The Guides contains county-by-county cross-references, as well as short essays about:

  • What home care is;
  • How to pay for it;
  • How to choose an agency, and;
  • What the advantages are of working with an agency over other options.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Report on the Massachusetts Serious Illness Coalition

The MA Serious Illness Coalition pushes to bring awareness and focus on end-of-life issues.

“It is my goal that every nursing school in MA embrace that a nursing student must see a dying patient with the same fervor that they embrace that every nurse must see a baby being born.”
— Susan Lysaght Hurley, PhD, RN
Director of Research, Care Dimensions, Inc

Last week, the Massachusetts Serious Illness Coalition hosted its annual meeting welcoming more than 100 attendees to the JFK Library in Boston. The message from the Coalition’s leadership – as articulated by Blue Cross Blue Shield MA President and CEO – is that “the momentum is building.” From the Coalition’s beginnings less than five years ago, Dreyfus has focused on a long-term strategy to achieve the Coalition’s six goals. These include the ideas that everyone in Massachusetts 18 years or older has a designated health care decision-maker and that all Massachusetts clinicians have appropriate training to communicate comfortably with patients around advanced care planning and serious illness. Dreyfus has likened the work to that done in years past on smoking and on car seats, where steady force and public messaging achieved near-universal changes in public thinking.

The progress on clinician education – from a provider association perspective – is perhaps the most engaging and encouraging news. Dr Atul Gwande, as eloquent as ever, declared that the work to date has shown that: “People have priorities in life beyond just surviving, but you must ask them. Suffering happens when care doesn’t match our priorities.”

In addition to a public education campaign about engaging in advanced care planning conversations, Dr. Gwande announced that the Coalition is in talks with all four Massachusetts medical schools about a cooperative effort to require training of med students in serious illness communication as a graduation requirement.

But it was Dr, Hurley’s remarks that struck home for the home health and hospice agencies in the Coalition. In addition to the above comment, Dr. Hurley spoke of being a young nurse “totally unprepared as to how to talk to the dying.” Along with her subcommittee co-chair Anne Marie Barron of Simmons College, she is working on recommendations on core competencies for nursing education related to serious illness care. These are to be presented in the near future to the Massachusetts Association of Colleges of Nursing. What a great achievement that would be!

For those following the Coalition’s work, these may also be of interest:

  1. End Games, an Academy Award-nominated short documentary on hospice and palliative care executive produced by Shoshana Ungerleider, MD. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and was acquired by Netflix.

2. The Coalition’s public message research and draft public facing marketing approaches.

Commendable progress!

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

HCA and Northeastern University Partner on Nurse Symposium in June

These days, it seems like every week a new report is published sounding the alarm of a rapidly aging population across the United States and a shortage of workers prepared to care for this barreling silver tsunami. So much of the media coverage and research is focused on the paraprofessional workforce.

See for example, these reports/publications:

However, the Home Care Alliance member surveys indicate that the problem is broader than just a shortage of home health aides. The availability of a trained nursing workforce to meet a growing home-based health care delivery system is also emerging as an issue. Compounding challenges are impacting our ability as an industry to attract nursing students into home and community-based settings after nursing school.  That is why, on June 7th the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts and Northeastern’s School of Nursing are hosting a symposium on the very topic of building a home care nursing workforce at Northeastern University from 9AM – 3PM.

The event, titled: Nursing Call to Action: Building a Nursing Workforce to Deliver Complex Care at Home, will bring together more than 25 nursing schools and 25 home health providers for a day-long session. The program will kick-start a dialogue brainstorming new approaches for preparing and exposing Massachusetts nursing students for an increasingly intensive health delivery system in the home.

This event will look past the issue of reimbursement rates or ever-changing reforms at CMS, and instead will focus on four key areas:

  1. Identifying knowledge and skills gaps for LPN/RN new-grads and what changes can be made to address the gaps and develop competencies in executing highly complex services
  2. Elevating the visibility to nursing schools of the growing demand for home-based services and the need to expose students to possible careers in home care nursing
  3. Identifying strategies on recruitment as new-grads and experienced nurses prepare for possible careers in home care nursing
  4. Identifying barriers and strategies to get home health agencies more involved in clinical placements for nursing students

If you would like more information on this event, please reach out to Jake Krilovich. Please note: There is limited space for this event!

PDGM Fix Introduced, Advocacy Needed

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen Susan Collins (R-ME)  introduced what will be a most important legislative priority for HCA of MA this year.  Senate bill (S.433) will curtail the so-called $1 billion “behavioral adjustment” cut under the Patient Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) to which all of home health is transitioning in 2020.  Among, many other changes, PDGM will move home health from a 60 to a 30 day payment unit. This is the most significant change to home health payment since the Prospective Payment System was introduced in 2000.

The Congressional action that called for a home health payment overhaul required that the new payment model be budget neutral against current spending levels. However,  the legislation also allowed that CMS to consider “behavioral  adjustments” defined as industry actions that would be taken to increase payment under the new model, unrelated to patient case mix changes. CMS has used this authority very broadly to institute a payment adjustment in the first year of PDGM based on “assumptions” of behavioral changes, and that adjustment calls for a 6.42% base rate reduction, or a possible $1b reduction in payments.

S 433 would prohibit CMS from making any pre-rate change reductions based on assumptions and instead to phase in any adjustments (either up or down) based on observed evidence (i.e., data supported) changes in provider behavior. The objective would be to achieve budget neutrality by 2029. This later piece addresses concerns the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expressed regarding whether a similar bill introduced last session was truly budget neutral. S.433 also would allow Medicare advantage plans and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations (CMMI) to waive the “confined to home”  provision when in the best interest of a Medicare beneficiary.

Regardless of the “behavioral adjustments,” the PDGM model is expected to have a tremendously varied impact state by state and agency by agency.  A significant amount of this impact is related to a Congressional  requirement that the payment model no longer use the volume of therapy as a payment level determinant.  (Something MEDPAC has been calling on CMS to do for years.)   The state of Florida, where therapy visits average 10.45 per episode of care is set to “lose” the most – projected at $141 million.  California on the other hand, where the average therapy utilization per episode was 5.76,  will be the largest gainer.  MA (need numbers from Tim)  Note: S 433 does not seek to make changes to the structure of the payment model that produces these changes.

It is important to reflect on CMS’ proposal in 2017, Home Health Groupings Model (HHGM) and how we arrived to where we are today. At the time, HHGM represented similar changes to the payment model, without soliciting industry feedback and some estimates predicting a 15% reduction in payments. As a result, the industry unified itself behind one message: that CMS withdraw its proposal and engage stakeholders to come up with an alternative. Upwards of 13,000 emails were sent to Congress from the industry, 49 members of the U.S. Senate and almost 160 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed onto letters to CMS echoing the request to withdraw HHGM. This was a remarkable show of mobilization by the industry and we’ll need it again to make modifications to PDGM.

At present there is no bill in the House, but it is expected that one will be forthcoming.  Strong early sign on support is critical to keeping this bill moving and HCA of MA will be urging members to contact the MA delegation to support S.433 and the companion house legislation to be introduced. Stay tuned for these advocacy alerts in our weekly newsletter and advocacy messages in the coming weeks.

HCA will also be hosting a number of member events to prepare for the payment transition.  While the full day PDGM programs in March in Northampton are sold out, there will be a high concentration of sessions on PDGM at the New England Home Care Conference and Trade Show in on June 5 -7 inn Falmouth. Watch here for more details.

In the meantime, send a message here to Senators Warren and Markey about the need for their support on this issue. 

Let’s do this home care – we cannot sustain $1 billion in cuts based on assumptions, not facts!

Talking Home Care: NAHC’s Calvin McDaniel on the 2018 Midterm Elections

Calvin McDaniel of NAHC joins us to talk about the implications of the 2018 Midterm Election on the home care industry.

Kelleher and McDaniel

On this week’s edition of Talking Home Care, we are joined by Calvin McDaniel, Director of Government Affairs for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC). Calvin oversees NAHC’s legislative priorities on Capitol Hill, and collaborates with the Alliance and other state associations on shared, industry-wide priorities.

Our discussion recaps the 2018 Midterm Elections and what to expect in the 116th Congress, which will be seated in January 2019. Enjoy!


You may listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below, downloading it directly, or subscribing through iTunes or Google Play. (Length: 29 minutes; Size: 23.2 MB). If you enjoy it, please give us a five-star review so others can find it.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guest: Calvin McDaniel, Director of Government Affairs for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).

2018 Midterm Elections Recap (Updated Monday, 11/19):

  • Democrats regained control of the US House of Representatives, gaining 37 seats so far and holding a majority of 233 seats to Republicans’ 198 seats.
  • Republicans held control of the US Senate picking up two seat as and expanding their Senate Majority to 52 seats to Democrats’ 47 seats. The Mississippi senate seat is heading toward a run-off election on November 27th.
  • On the state level: Democrats flipped nearly 400 state legislative seats nationwide, flipped seven Republican-held governor seats, and took full control of the legislature and Governors’ mansion in seven states.
  • Lastly, three states: Idaho, Nebraska and Utah voted to expand Medicaid. And a fourth state, Maine, elected a democratic governor, who will likely do the same.
  • Overall, nearly 116 million voters cast ballots, representing over 40% of eligible voters and represents the largest midterm voter turnout in 104 years.
  • It is expected that Representative Richard Neal (D-MA) will become the Chairman of House Ways & Means, and Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) will become the new Chairman of the Rules Committee. This greatly increases the Massachusetts’ Congressional Delegation influence on Capitol Hill.

The most important takeaway from our conversation with Calvin is that HCA members should prepare for an incredibly active two years of advocacy. Take hold of your responsibility to engage your elected officials on behalf of your organization and join us in the fight on the many issues facing our industry. Be it an email to a legislator, inviting them to your offices for a tour or on a home visit, or taking time to join us in D.C. for one of the many fly-in events, it takes an army of voices to accomplish a common goal. To get involved, email Jake Krilovich.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Talking Home Care: Amanda Oberlies on “No on MA Ballot Question 1”

Amanda Oberlies of the Organization of Nurse Leaders joins us to discuss why her organization (and the Alliance) oppose Massachusetts Ballot Question #1.

The Alliance’s Pat Kelleher &
ONL’s Amanda Oberlies

Should health care facilities have their nurse-to-patient ratios defined by law? That’s the question put to Massachusetts voters this coming Tuesday. Amanda Oberlies of the Organization of Nurse Leaders joins us to discuss why her organization (and the Alliance) oppose Massachusetts Ballot Question #1. Their conversation covers:

  • Who’s behind the ballot question and why?
  • What is the intersection of staffing-ratios and quality?
  • How does California’s experience with a similar law correlate to the MA proposal?


You may listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below, downloading it directly, or subscribing through iTunes or Google Play. (Length: 30 minutes; Size: 24 MB). If you enjoy it, please give us a five-star review so others can find it.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guest: Amanda Stefancyk Oberlies, PhD, MBA, RN, CENP, is the Chief Executive Officer of the Organization of Nurse Leaders (ONL).

Resources:

Talking Home Care LogoDon’t want to miss the next episode of Talking Home Care? Subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, or accessing its feed directly.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Talking Home Care: Pat Ahern on Palliative Care 101

Pat Ahern of Care Dimensions joins us to discuss several hospice-related issues affecting the home care industry.

Pat Ahern of Care Dimensions
Pat Ahern

Pat Ahern of Care Dimensions joins us for the eighth episode of the Talking Home Care Podcast. As the CEO of the largest and most experienced palliative care agency in the region, Pat’s an authority on palliative care, hospice, and related issues. In a conversation with Alliance Executive Director Pat Kelleher, Ahern discusses:

  • Palliative care’s role as a “midwife at the other end of life”;
  • Dementia care;
  • Payment reform;
  • Referral sources;
  • Nurse recruitment and training; and
  • Physician involvement.


You may listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below, downloading it directly, or subscribing through iTunes or Google Play. (Length: 26 minutes; Size: 12 MB). If you enjoy it, please give us a five-star review so others can find it as well.

Host: Patricia Kelleher is the Executive Director of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

Guest: Patricia Ahern, joined Care Dimensions in 2017 as president and CEO. With more than 30 years of leadership in healthcare and an MBA, she has the clinical and strategic business skills, and a true passion for the mission, that enables her to provide Care Dimensions’s vision and leadership.

Resources: More information about Care Dimensions.

Talking Home Care LogoDon’t want to miss the next episode of Talking Home Care? Subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, or accessing its feed directly.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

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