How Home Care Organizations Are Leveraging ‘Test Kitchens’ at Company-Owned Locations

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In some ways, preparation and experimentation are two sides of the same coin in that the latter gives way to the former.

Over the years, a number of home care franchise companies have added company-owned locations to their larger franchise networks. These locations function as “test kitchens” that allow providers to experiment with new programs for clients and caregivers, as well as new technologies and operational models.

Back in 2019, Right at Home revealed that the company was in the midst of strategically adding company-owned locations to its overall portfolio. Though Right at Home shared its plan to use these locations as testing sites, the company held back on detailing the specifics at the time.

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Two years later, Right at Home is in a position to be more forthcoming, while acknowledging its test kitchens are still in their infancy stage due to disruptions stemming from the public health emergency.

“It started in 2019 and didn’t really get rolled out until 2020 — and then we had COVID,” Jon Searles, vice president of corporate-owned operations at Right at Home, told Home Health Care News. “We have done quite a few testings for paperless processes, both on the caregiver and client side. We’ve been very successful on the caregiver side working directly with our payroll companies. We’ve also done some [apps and tracking systems] trials.”

Right at Home’s global headquarters is based in Omaha, Nebraska. It has more than 650 franchise locations in the U.S. and seven other countries, making it one of the largest franchise organizations in the home care industry.

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In the years since rolling out its test kitchens, Right at Home has also used this site to nail down “best practices” that work on a company-wide level.

“We are able to try some best practices and actually share all that information with our system,” Searles said. “We have an online library for our franchise system, where they can actually go on and see what’s going on at each location. The reason this is helpful is we have eight [company-owned locations] in eight states. This has made us more transparent.” 

Sometimes the changes that result from Right at Home’s test kitchens are more subtle or happen at a smaller scale. For instance, changes to some of the company’s written processes.

One of the key value-adds of Right at Home’s test kitchens is the room it creates for trial and error, according to Searles.

“When you test anything, sometimes things work, and sometimes they don’t,” he said. “Franchisees are busy people. We’ve been able to slow the pace down a bit and try something, but not waste the time of some of our franchisees by bringing something to them that we don’t think is developed enough yet, or just that will not work.”

Overall, Searles’s experience with the company’s test kitchens brings to mind the Thomas Edison quote, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

With that in mind, there have been moments where having these sites in place has helped Right at Home avoid missteps.

“We’ve had some technology trials that we decided weren’t a good fit because it took our franchisees focus off of home care,” Searles said. “Sometimes things sound like they’re a great idea and during the process of testing them — a new idea presents itself. We’re able to stop midstream, scrap that and try something else.”

Working out the bugs

In 2021, Griswold Home Care announced that it was also taking on company-owned locations that would be used as its own test kitchens.

As part of this, Christina Sommerfield came on board as Griswold’s vice president of company-owned offices during the previous year. Part of truly taking the helm of this division meant making sure each location was on the same page, Sommerfield told HHCN.

“When I first joined, my focus was to get to know all the offices,” she said. “I learned quickly that even though they were owned by the same company, each director was kind of doing their own processes. In order for it to be a true test kitchen, I had to streamline my internal processes first. I reviewed each of the offices and made sure they were all functioning the same way.”

Blue Bell, Pennsylvania-based Griswold provides personal care services across 200 locations in 30 states. The franchise has seven company-owned offices and also offers hospice care at some of its locations, plus an array of other services aimed at enabling aging in place.

Once Griswold’s house was in order, so to speak, the franchise was able to focus on taking advantage of these company-owned locations as testing sites.

That included testing the roll-out of new software and the launch of Griswold’s mentorship program.

“The best way to do training is hands-on — why not have team members train team members?” Sommerfield said. “When someone walks into the home for the first time, it’s great that they have somebody to show them the ropes. We have caregivers who are seasoned and have maybe been an employee of the month. We want to elevate them, so we’re making them mentors.” 

The company is also in the process of piloting same-day pay or “instant-pay.” Currently, 21 caregivers are part of the pilot program. If all continues to go well, the plan is to implement this across all of the company-owned locations and eventually start introducing this into the franchise network.

One successful operational change that resulted from its test kitchens is Griswold’s phone script.

“The phone script is for when someone’s calling into the office, or we’re calling a referral source, and makes sure that we follow along,” Sommerfield said. “It has a really amazing flow to gather all the information for a family member that might be calling in for a loved one looking for care. The script is probably on every owner’s desk.”

Similar to Right at Home, Griswold appreciates that its test kitchen allows them to “work out all of the bugs” before a company-wide implementation.

Ultimately, Sommerfield believes that the concept of test kitchens is one that other home care franchises should embrace.

“If they’re not doing it, I think they should do it,” she said. “It’s great to be able to talk to an owner and say, ‘I understand your struggles because I’m hearing this from my in-house office.’”

Griswold is currently in the process of opening an eighth company-owned location.

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