The challenge of hiring and retaining home health caregivers

There is no doubt that having qualified, hardworking and dedicated employees is key to operating a successful business. Recruiting and maintaining staff in the home health care industry has been a real struggle, resulting in a high turnover rate. (Source 1) Interestingly, since last year the Home Health Care sector gained 64,700 jobs, representing a growth rate of 4.8%. (Source 2)

So you may ask yourself, why is it so difficult to hire and keep your staff when there is a high demand for home care positions? Well it’s just that: there are thousands of home care agencies across the United States, so prospective employees will look for the agency that offers better incentives and tools for success.

Home health caregivers consist of both clinical and non-clinical workers, including aides and nurses. Caregivers can see multiple patients a day or week and not only do caregivers assist patients with their daily activities, but they also need to monitor and document the visit/interaction. Think about how challenging that can be for the caregiver, especially if they are manually documenting patient information on paper in the home. It is time consuming, can lead to errors, and takes time and attention away from the patient.

How can you make your agency more appealing to employees?  Here are some tips:

  • Offer tools that can help ease their documentation work load in order to allow more time to care for the patient
  • Take the time to match your caregivers and clients based on their needs and criteria
  • Follow up on a monthly basis with a survey or call that inquires a few basic questions on current processes and suggestions

Using a home care management software solution can help tie all your key operational processes together. A solution such as Sandata’s Agency Management can help with scheduling, documentation, compliance management, electronic medical records, billing functions, payroll, reporting, and exporting in one easy-to-use system.

It incorporates Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) that uses technology to validate telephone calls to log in and log out, recording time and location in real-time.

A point-of-care module that integrates with your agency management software works on mobile devices, enabling remote workforces to collect clinical and non-clinical data and access patient information at the point of care. In addition, it helps reduce clinical inconsistencies and documentation errors while improving communication, eliminating costs associated with paper forms and printed charts, and streamlines the process of assessment completion and submission.

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