Educating Homecare Aides: What You Need to Know!
Kenyon HomeCare Consulting • March 16, 2021
There’s no shortage of methods for growing your homecare organization these days. But one sure-fire way to boost your growth – that you probably haven’t thought of – is advanced chronic disease education for aides. With numerous benefits to your staff, your clients, and your bottom line, homecare aide education should be an integral part of your growth strategy.
Why Educating Homecare Aides Matters
Caregivers receive training while becoming certified aides, so why is it important to focus your efforts on educating homecare aides further? The reasons are practically never-ending, but we’ll start with these three:
Initial training isn’t enough. Although aides are required to become certified prior to employment, the training is very basic and doesn’t include specifics needed to adequately provide chronic disease care. In order to reap the rewards of a fully-educated staff, your aides must be knowledgeable of care beyond the basics.
Chronic diseases are on the rise. According to the CDC, chronic diseases (i.e. diabetes, heart disease, stroke) are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Unfortunately, the ability to treat these conditions isn’t keeping pace with the rate at which the diseases are rising. Nationwide clients and/or their families are looking for specialized care to help manage symptoms and live as normal of life as possible.
The medical field is constantly changing. Technological advancements are responsible for the bulk of these changes. While this is certainly a good thing, it makes continuously educating homecare aides more crucial than ever.
It’s no longer enough to employ average caregivers – not if you want to make a difference in the lives of your clients and grow your organization. Providing advanced chronic disease education is not only necessary, but also greatly advances your success.
Educating Homecare Aides Benefits Your Organization
When you provide advanced educate beyond the minimum requirements, you set your agency apart. Here are just three of the many benefits chronic disease education provides:
Creates an elite group of caregivers. What does this matter? Simply put, well-educated aides are elite having the ability to provide better care, which increases client satisfaction. When clients are satisfied, they tell referral sources. This has a positive snowball effect on your profit margin.
Sets you apart from the competition. As mentioned earlier, clients are in need of advanced chronic disease care now more than ever. Your competition isn’t offering this level of care or the specialized services you offer when your aides are well-educated. So clients and referral sources will turn to you for the care they require.
Increases employee retention. Give your aides a career path and a reason to become an elite caregiver, and they’ll stick with you longer. Research shows that employee replacement costs average about $75,000. That’s a big chunk of change! Educating aides ensures that you’ll avoid some of your current replacement costs.
Whichever reason for educating homecare aides resonates with you, there’s no questioning the importance of advanced education. At Kenyon HomeCare Consulting, we offer everything you need to meet the needs of your community, satisfy clients and employees, and boost your bottom line – all through the one of it’s kind, Aide University.
Check out our courses when you’re ready to make a difference in your community, organization and your bottom line!
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HOPE Question and Answer Repository
Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.