Future Leader: Sofia Koshevatsky, HealthFlex Home Health & Hospice CEO and Founder

The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of senior housing, skilled nursing, home health and hospice care. To see this year’s future leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.

Sofia Koshevatsky, CEO and founder of Oakland, California-based HealthFlex Home Health & Hospice, has been named a 2021 Future Leader by Home Health Care News.

To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40-years-old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors, and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.

Koshevatsky sat down with HHCN to talk about the importance of integrity, why it’s critical for patients to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their care, and how she followed in her mother’s footsteps.

HHCN: What drew you to this industry?

Koshevatsky: It was my family and my upbringing. My mother has been a visiting nurse and working in home health care for over 35 years. It was something that was brought home. It was something that was talked about. When I got older, I went to nursing school and followed in her footsteps.

We realized, as a family, there was more that we could do for our community together. That’s how we kind of started HealthFlex Home Health & Hospice.

What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?

The biggest and one of the most important lessons is really just staying true to my values and upholding ethical practices. It’s important to maintain the integrity of what I do on a daily basis.

If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of home-based care, what would it be?

It all boils down to community education. It’s really about educating the community and the patient, having them involved in decision-making for their own health care. I want everyone to know how valuable and how important it is for care to start in the home.

What do you foresee as being different about the home-based care industry looking ahead to 2022?

It’s going to be more innovative. There’s going to be more growth in this space. I also really think that population health will be more centralized — in the home setting. Health care will focus more on the home than anywhere else.

In a word, how would you describe the future of home-based care?

Encompassing. I think more services are going to be offered in the home, more acute care will be provided, more remote monitoring.

What quality must all future leaders possess?

Empathy, humility and compassion. I would say those are the main ones a leader should possess.

If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?

It would be having a deeper level of understanding of the needs of our patients, clients and our partners in the health care system. I would say to be more involved with the goals of the hospitals and our partners.

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