This article is sponsored by CareAcademy. In this Voices interview, Home Health Care News sits down with Robyn Lunsford, CareAcademy’s Chief Growth Officer, to talk about how training automation helps agency owners and leaders get back to their ‘why’ for working in this industry. They enter the profession with the best of intentions but can easily get caught up in operational and HR pitfalls. Robyn shares how simple technology resources can automate tasks that normally consume hours and also give a competitive edge in the staffing market, getting these leaders back to what matters most.
What career experiences do you most draw from in your role today?
I spent almost a decade at Care.com helping to grow and scale the business to achieve both a successful IPO and a subsequent acquisition. One of the most powerful lessons that I learned during that time is the importance of listening to and prioritizing the needs of our customers.
At Care.com, we were always focused on meeting the needs of our customers, whether they were caregivers, parents, or employers. We listened to their feedback, and constantly innovated to create products and services that would make their lives easier. This focus on the customer helped us to grow and succeed.
I believe that same principle applies to CareAcademy. We are committed to providing our customers with the best platform and value and our learners with the best possible training and experience. We listen to their feedback, and we are constantly working to improve our platform, classes and programs. We believe that by putting our customers and learners first, we can help them to achieve their goals and succeed in their careers.
How can a training platform help with operational and staffing challenges?
A training solution that incorporates automation to drive efficiency and scalability provides value far beyond access to tailored educational content, streamlining workflows and saving owners and administrators a significant amount of time.
CareAcademy automatically assigns training to meet state compliance requirements, tracks training completion using recurring insights, and produces single-click, audit-ready reports. Additionally, our platform simplifies internal communication by sending messages that prompt caregivers to complete their current training, prompting them to complete the next required course and notifying them of upcoming annual compliance training requirements. It even automates manual data entry from one software platform to another through integrations with leading back-office systems
A solution like CareAcademy is critical for home health care owners and administrators because it enables them to focus their time on empowering their care teams and growing their business. And because of the value that educational upskilling provides to caregivers, it supports agencies with both recruitment and retention efforts.
How has CareAcademy seen automation used as a solution to solve the skills shortage and accelerate the ramp-up time to meet market demand?
Our customers have reported significant impacts to their business as a result of using CareAcademy’s training solution.
For example, a HomeWell Care Services franchise owner in Kentucky shared that in the span of only three months, they were able to reduce their onboarding time by 43% (from 30 to 17 days) while simultaneously observing an 18% increase in their Combined Client Satisfaction Level. They attribute these results to both CareAcadmey’s text reminders, which successfully kept their caregivers on track, and to the engaging, high quality and real-time accessible content that enabled quality care delivery.
Another customer of ours, Aveanna, launched a pilot program to train home health aides using CareAcademy’s blended learning curriculum. Using a combination of online and in-person classes, some of the aides were able to complete the six-week program in as little as five days. They attribute this to our mobile-friendly content – accessible anytime from any device – and to the bite-size learning modules that we developed using evidence-based principles rooted in behavioral science. Additionally, Aveanna has praised our online tracking, grading, and record-keeping capabilities and shared that they have helped them to decrease their manual operational efforts.
What other efficiencies can agencies experience when they incorporate an automated training solution into their technology ecosystem?
They also experience significant cost-savings using an automated training platform, given the elimination of time and costs incurred by traditional training methods: cost of instructors, training facility rentals, overhead costs attributed to staff program management and costs associated with ad hoc tools used for communicating with caregivers via sms.Our ROI calculator is a helpful tool anyone can use to quickly estimate these kinds of cost efficiencies.
Other cost benefits that have been reported include the reduction in spend associated with having to replace churned caregivers or having to turn down new customers/new revenue due to caregiver shortages.
Incorporating an automated training solution into a provider’s tech stack also yields the gift of time. Hours, even days, can be recouped on time-consuming manual tasks such as keeping up with a compliance log, grading exams by hand or building out error-free reports for audits. Time savings are enhanced when the solution is integrated with back office, EHR systems, eliminating the need for data entry and management in multiple platforms.
What does the completion of specialized competency certifications mean for home care and home health agencies? How does training caregivers support the growth and sustainability of their business?
With hospitals discharging patients sooner and the senior population wanting to age in place at home, you can’t afford not to train your caregivers to handle higher-acuity cases. If your staff isn’t equipped with the proper knowledge and skills, it can also affect partner referrals from facilities’ care coordinators – they want to have confidence in the arrangements they’re making for their clients. “The Home Care Workforce Crisis” report released by HCAOA and NAHC in March of this year revealed that 25% of referred patients can’t receive service because providers don’t have the staff trained or qualified to serve them. Imagine the opportunity that provides to agencies who invest in specialized competency certifications.
Providing this type of advanced learning also positively impacts recruitment and retention. We know from our “Caregiver Aspirations Survey” that out of the 1,500 participating caregivers, 94% say access to further education is an important consideration in accepting a job offer and 88% of them will feel more satisfied if given education and training opportunities to improve their skills.
One of my favorite examples of this is from Kevin Smith with Best of Care. He took a group of his employees from housekeeping and companionship roles and put them through a training program using our platform. They all graduated as home health aides and were able to not only increase their income but also serve a wider population. This same emphasis on higher-acuity training was a recurring theme during our panel at HHCN’s Capital + Strategy. Leaders from Always Best Care and AccordCare cite it as a critical element to staffing and business growth.
What is your outlook on the staffing environment looking at the year ahead?
Unfortunately, the data doesn’t suggest that we will be out of this staffing shortage anytime soon, however I do believe that providing educational upskilling opportunities and enabling pathways for professional growth and advancement can certainly help with recruiting new folks into the field and in retaining current talent in the market.
And we see this playing out with our current customers! AccordCare, for instance, has been placing an emphasis on providing education to handle patients with more clinically complex conditions. Several leaders from corporate franchisors we work with are echoing the same sentiment, urging their franchisees to start with offering caregivers our dementia care certification.
As a company, CareAcademy has seen a 90% increase YTD in the number of customers upgrading to our Complete package and a 10% increase YTD in the number of our Dementia Care, Home Health and Complete packages purchased as new business, all of which include at least one specialty certification.
In addition to supporting specialized skills training, I think that the path to success will increasingly require that organizations whose purpose it is to improve and support both caregivers and our aging population, will need to focus on listening more and responding to the evolving needs of the market.
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In a couple of words, finish this sentence: “In 2023, the home-based care industry has been defined by…”
…a spirit of tenacity, innovation and collaboration. Everyone has been impacted by the staffing challenges and regulatory changes, but we’re getting better at how we respond. More technology solutions, creative programs and new partnerships are emerging in order to solve the systemic problems in our industry, setting the stage for us to not just respond, but to prepare and approach the future proactively.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CareAcademy’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to a caregiver-centric healthcare system by elevating caregivers and enabling excellent health outcomes. With a care enablement platform that offers accessible and engaging training content, streamlined technology solutions, and measurable insights, CareAcademy is transforming the way we train essential caregivers. See how we can help you achieve your operational and staffing goals, visit www.careacademy.com.
The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact [email protected].
