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

Chelsea Chartowick, the human resources coordinator at Syracuse, New York-based Nascentia Health, has been named a 2023 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.

Chartowick sat down with HHCN to talk about the biggest lessons she’s learned in home care, home care’s role in the greater health care landscape, the importance of change in the industry and more.

HHCN: What drew you to this industry?

Chartowick: I started in a support-staff role that grew into a larger role in supporting a local doctor who ran multiple organizations. She was a specialty provider and a primary care provider.

I feel like health care has been an industry where you can have an impact on the greater things in life, outside of the day-to-day. Providing quality care, providing quality staff, providing a safe space so some of our most vulnerable people in the community can get what they need while they’re not at their best.

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

Some of the biggest lessons that come to mind are: one size does not fit all, people like to be listened to and not just heard, and to ensure that we’re meeting people where they are. That last one is very, very important in health care and in home care. I think they’re intermingled because health care and home care can mean different things to different people.

Those three things really drive your interactions with any person on any level in the entire industry, or even as people.

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

I would just hope there is a greater appreciation and understanding for the vast amount of skill and work and dedication that goes into home care.

It’s not the unforgotten piece, but I feel like when people think of health care they think of some of these larger facilities, and the goal of home care is to provide and have resources available outside of these hospitals and facilities where you can get the same level of care, if not better.

And oftentimes people get better results. People are the best versions of themselves when they are in their comfortable and safe space. This is where you get to meet them at their level. This is where you can be that support mechanism in getting them back to that best version of themselves.

I think that the change would be to enhance the understanding and the importance of home care and how important it is to provide for our community members.

What do you foresee as being different about the home health industry looking ahead to 2024?

Health care has had a huge wake up call with the pandemic. The need for home care has heightened.

We have a CEO here at Nascentia that really just drives home the importance of community. At least in our organization and in the greater New York region, home care is bigger than just home care. It’s providing support and resources. Home care can be whatever you interpret or perceive it to be.

Now it’s about ensuring that we’re pushing the bar and are creative with how we provide care. We need to remove some of the barriers for what home care is traditionally known as and provide a care model that is not “cookie cutter.” We’re going outside of that mold and have started to think about housing for individuals who are homeless or on the verge of being homeless, who might not have access to facilities to receive the care that is needed in order to be healthy and live a fulfilled life.

In a word, how would you describe the future of home health?

Evolving.

I think it’s important to not have blinders on and to look at everything with a 360-degree approach. Not being afraid to touch on some of those creative spaces, really make a difference and to challenge what has been. Health care as a whole has evolved, so I think this is the opportunity for home care in particular to really rise to the occasion.

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

Change begins with you. I think it’s important to be a change agent in order to see things in life and in our industry evolve. You have to be willing to be part of that change and it can only start with you.

That can be a little scary and maybe you bump into some challenges or go down some bumpy roads along the way, but because people have been those change agents and have not been afraid to be a part of that change, we wouldn’t be as advanced as an industry as we are today.

To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.