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Oct 5

Home Care Marketing Online

EP 142 SCI NETCAST: TIM ROWAN- THE ROWAN REPORT

https://www.asnmarketingplan.com/sci-netcast-tim-rowan-the-rowan-report/

 

This is Valerie VanBooven with the Senior Care Industry Netcast, where leaders with three or more years of experience in the senior care market share their advice. So, let’s get to it. In a few sentences, tell us who you are and what you do.

Tim Rowan:

Hi, Valerie. Thanks. My name is Tim Rowan and I have been around the home care market for a little more three years.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. Yep. A lot of them.

Tim Rowan:

I started… I started with a home care agency as the IT director in 1993 and I’ve been the editor and primary writer of Home Care Technology The Rowan Report for the last 22 years.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. You’ve been around a while. That’s true. And, I know that a lot of folks who watch this video are going to recognize your face and your name and probably subscribe to your email and your newsletter as well, so thanks for doing the show. And, I know today we’re going to talk about two things that are near and dear to your heart right now and probably everybody because it’s been so crazy. So, let’s talk recruiting. Caregiver recruiting. I mean, we recently discussed the challenges of caregiver recruiting, so tell us more about the importance of hiring the right caregivers versus warm bodies. And, I… And, you use some… You used an analogy that was pretty funny to me or at least made a lot of sense. Right now, a lot of folks feel like they’re hiring anybody who can blow up a balloon. So, we don’t want that to happen. So, talk to us about what you’ve got.

Tim Rowan:

Yes. Turns out that that’s an expensive problem.

Valerie VanBooven:

Tim Rowan:

Everybody tells me… And, the reason I’m going to focus on this recently is because I’ve been hearing it from so many different quarters, that recruiting and retention is their number one problem in home health and home care today, regardless of public or private payers. Every… Every format, and not just home care. But health care everywhere. Assisted living, nursing facilities, they… Hospitals. They’re all desperate for people and it’s been made worse, of course, by the pandemic, and… And, so, there are nurses and non-medical caregivers leaving the profession. Some of them are getting better offers. There are telemarketing companies that pay more. And… And, so, home care agencies find themselves in a real difficult position today and they have, in general… It seems that they’re behaving as though the answer is to recruit and hire as many people as possible, hoping that the few who stay will be enough that you need.

Tim Rowan:

What I’ve been learning, though, is that what that means is you incur the expense of the recruiter. I’ve talked to a couple agencies that have two full time recruiters. Then, you have the expense of the personnel who do the interviewing, the vetting, the looking through the applications. Then, you have the expense of the background check and the orientation and training. After all of that is invested, it could take anywhere from 45 to 90 days to recoup your investment, and that is if this new hiree is working full time.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep.

Tim Rowan:

Well, people tell me that that doesn’t always happen, that people go through the orientation and training, they work for 10, 20, 30 days or not at all, and that expense, whatever it is… I’ve seen estimates between 2,500 and 4,500 per hire. That expense is just lost if they don’t work.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. That’s true. This is a lot of money, a lot of time and energy, a lot of, you know, really hard work to get these people in, and the money impact is huge. I mean, in home care, we’re dealing with a situation where the margins aren’t gigantic anyway and you add on all of this other challenge and all of a sudden we’re upside down. So, it’s… It’s a really tough time.

Tim Rowan:

So, I’ve been trying to help people to explore better ways than just massive hiring. You know how it works if you use Indeed or Monster or one of those? People only have to fill out an application once and then they just sit in front of their computer and click, click, click, apply, apply, apply. And, when you call them for an interview, they say, “Now, which one were you?”.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:04:57].

Tim Rowan:

And so, they’re not necessarily committed to scheduling an interview or showing up for an interview. So, it turns out that the answer to the staff shortage is not interviewing and hiring as many as possible in order to get a few. I’ve done a research. I’ve done a case study on an agency in Florida that, for every 200 applications, they select 100. They interview 50. They hire 25. And, after 30 days, they have eight. And, that means that every single one of those that they have gone through orientation and training are a sunk cost, a loss, an absolute cash loss on the books. And so, I have been trying to find solutions and it turns out there’s a couple of technology solutions.

Tim Rowan:

I’m preparing a talk coming up soon for a couple of state associations where I’m going to lay this out and I have a full hour to do it. But the brief version is you can vet people who have applied by using a technology from a company called MiliMatch that I found. They use a process called applied cognitive linguistics that asks the applicant to answer five or six questions, two or three sentences each, and somehow they can come up with a score that will tell you if that person is likely to stay for more than 30 days or not. But I don’t claim to understand how it works.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

But they have… They have data that shows that it does work.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:06:47] And, we talked about this before. I mean, this is not the same as… As personality testing. This is…

Tim Rowan:

No. Not at all.

Valerie VanBooven:

This is way different than that.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. It’s not a personality test. It’s not AI. It’s… It is a patented technology that people who have used it early on have discovered that is accurate in predicting who is going to turn out to be a good long term caregiver and who is not. It’s not perfect and it doesn’t override your gut feeling, your judgment during the interview. You still have a choice. But it gives you guidance and helps you to maybe hire people that you normally wouldn’t or maybe reach out to people that you normally would.

Valerie VanBooven:

And… And, what you… You’ve had someone use it. You’ve had some feedback already on this.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. The early tests when they were doing their trials with a couple of franchise organizations, so non-medical home care, and they… What they did was they found a score that comes out of the MiliMatch questionnaire and above that score they have found that their new hires stay longer and below that score they don’t. So, they’ve… They’ve determined the score that works for them. It might not be the same for everybody. But they’ve all determined the score that works for them and by hiring people that… That come in above that score, they have reduced turnover, many of them, in the area of 20 to 30%.

Valerie VanBooven:

Nice.

Tim Rowan:

So, if you think about it, if it actually does cost as much as 4,500 to hire somebody and then you lose all of that if they never take their first shift…

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

You don’t have to save more than one or two of those a year.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

And, you pay for this whole thing. You pay for a year’s subscription to this. So, a lot of people are saying, “Yeah. Okay. I’ll give it a try. What have I got to lose? Because I’m already losing quite a bit.”

Valerie VanBooven:

You’re already [inaudible 00:08:59]. Eight out of 25 that… You know, if you get down to that 25, if you could know in the example you used before of, you know, you interview 200, you, you know, look… Or, you look at 200 applicants. You reach out to 100. You hire 25 and only eight actually stay after 30 days. If you could take that 25 and say, “You know, let’s do this.” You know, set them down or send it to, the link to them, or whatever, and have them do that test. You would know… Or, even sooner than that perhaps. You would know of those 25 who are probably going to stay. After a little trial and error, I’m sure. But you would know.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

Who’s going to stay and who’s not going to stay [crosstalk 00:09:42].

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. And, by knowing that, you can save a lot of money.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. So, if you actually did it before you got down to your 25 candidates, you would know who you wanted to have move forward in orientation and who you didn’t. You know, we’re going to just go ahead and let it go. [crosstalk 00:09:56].

Tim Rowan:

Well, one of the… One of the reasons I jumped on this technology and I’ve been recommending it is because they make it as easy as possible. A lot of agencies today have an online application.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

So, you go to the website, you fill out the application, and then it immediately goes to the MiliMatch website and asks the questions.

Valerie VanBooven:

Nice.

Tim Rowan:

So, the vetting happens right at the beginning. So, if you can… If you can get those eight that will stay for a year…

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

By doing orientation and training with 20 instead of 25…

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

That’s all it takes to improve your… Or, to mitigate your losses that you’re already incurring.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. And, you’re right about the cost. I mean, I know for some folks it’s lower, some folks it’s higher. But on this level of hiring, we’re not talking about executive level. We’re talking about CNAs, HHAs, caregivers of any kind in the senior care facility or in home care. At that level, it is around $4,000 if you count everybody’s time, everybody’s hourly rate that are working for you to get them there, the money you spend on orientation and the background checks and all the things that go into it, adding them to the payroll. It is about $4,000.

Tim Rowan:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Valerie VanBooven:

Somewhere in there.

Tim Rowan:

Right.

Valerie VanBooven:

So.

Tim Rowan:

Right. And so, if you’re… If you’re hiring that many people and you’re only keeping a third of them or fewer, that’s 4,500 times five or 10 or eight or 15, depending on the size of your agency, and it…

Valerie VanBooven:

Hmm. It adds up. [crosstalk 00:11:37]

Tim Rowan:

And, the margins aren’t that… Aren’t that large to begin with.

Valerie VanBooven:

[inaudible 00:11:43]. So, yeah. So, if… Yeah. So, I mean, if your mar… You know, we’re already working in an industry where margins are not great depending on who your payers are and even in private pay, they can be still a challenge at times. So, to lose 40, 400, even to lose… I mean, 4,000. Even to lose 2,500 on somebody who was just brought on board is a… Just a…

Tim Rowan:

Yep.

Valerie VanBooven:

Ugh. Horrible [inaudible 00:12:09].

Tim Rowan:

If you figure 2,500, they’ve got to work about 45 days.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

You know, depending on what you’re charging your client and what you’re paying them.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

They’ve got to work at least 45 days to break even. If your costs really are in the $4,000 range, then they have to work 80 or 90 days before you break even.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep.

Tim Rowan:

How many of these caregivers stay for a year? That percentage is pretty small. So, if you’re shooting for 90 days, you got to make sure you’re hiring the right person.

Valerie VanBooven:

Absolutely. So, if… If someone was interested in knowing more about MiliMatch, can… Or, should we send them to your website to talk to you? Or, would you like us to give them the MiliMatch website?

Tim Rowan:

Well, both. I’ve written two or three articles about this technology in the last few months since I discovered it, so if people register for my newsletter, which is free, they… They can easily find those articles. I have a search engine on the home page at homecarecheckreport.com.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right.

Tim Rowan:

If you just type in MiliMatch and it’s real easy. It’s… It’s spelled the way it sounds. M-I-L-I match. If you just type that in to the search engine, you’ll see the articles I’ve written about them and a couple of them do have links too and that’s easy too. It’s milimatch.com if they want to contact the company and learn more about it and see some of the other case studies other than the ones that I’ve mentioned today.

Valerie VanBooven:

Awesome. Okay. We’ll make sure all of your contact information is with this video so folks can, you know, subscribe to the newsletter and at the same time get more information about MiliMatch, so that’s [crosstalk 00:13:59].

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. Great. Great. I appreciate that.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right. Well, let’s talk about something… I think this might tie in to something else you wanted to discuss today. My next question is about companies and organizations that you really think do a great job, who’s influenced you, who… Or, who have just really made a great impression on you as far as health care, technology, or whatever it might be. And, I know that there’s also an organization that you want to talk about with regards to COVID vaccines. So, I’ll let you take it from there.

Tim Rowan:

Well, yeah. Over the last… Wow. I hate to even think about it, but I guess it’s been nearly 28 years since I started… Since I was introduced to home care.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

And, just like most people that I have met in this time, once you’re introduced, it’s hard to walk away.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

It’s… It’s a part of the health care system that just draws you in and makes you want to help and do more. So, yeah. There have been people that I have been inspired by over the years. One of my… One of my favorite Beatles songs is the one that goes, “Some are dead and some are living and in my life I’ve loved them all.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

Of course, I was introduced to this field by one of the great technology consultants that home health has ever known. Tom Williams was the head of the mack that is now known as NGS out of… Out of Milwaukee. And, then he went into consulting and he and I built this newsletter together. He taught me everything that he knew for 10 years and when he died, I stepped in and carried on. So, I always think of him as my mentor that has influenced me the most as I have tried to step in and fill his shoes, which has not been easy.

Tim Rowan:

I’ve been inspired by people who have started software companies and built them. I became good friends with Jeff Lewis, who has been retired after selling his company for a few years now. He’s… He taught me a lot. The founder of Kinnser that is now… There’s acquired by and now part of WellSky. Chris Hester approached me after I spoke at a conference one time and sat me down and said, “You know, I… Somebody told me there’s this thing called home care and they want me to write some software for it. What can you tell me about software?”. So, I always like to cite him as someone that I mentored who moved on to make many times more money than I do.

Valerie VanBooven:

That’s good.

Tim Rowan:

But there’s… But there’s been… There’s been a number of people over the years who have gotten into home care, home health, hospice, software and other technology, remote patient monitoring and wound care technology and the like. And, the ones that have gotten into it out of a patient care motivation more than just as a business operation are the ones who have inspired me. I’ve talked to so many people that said, “Hey, we want you to write about this new company we just started.” And, I say, “Well, tell me your story.” And, nine times out of 10, it’s, “Well, my mother had this experience when she was in home care or when she was in hospice and it was such a terrible experience I decided I was going to jump in and make it better.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

I hear that over and over again, and those are the people that I admire.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. Absolutely. It’s… And… And, even… To hear that even in folks who start a home care agency or, you know, invest in one… They say, “Oof. We had a terrible time finding care for my mother, so I remember those days. I remember being that caregiver.”

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

“So, [crosstalk 00:18:18] why we started [crosstalk 00:18:19].”

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

I really respect and admire those people. Yes. [crosstalk 00:18:22].

Tim Rowan:

And, that… And, that of course is… Kind of leads to the… The one that everybody points to as their inspiration, Mark Bayata, who started a company with two employees and a little tiny office.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

And, has been dedicated to his employees and his patients for 30 some years and even now retired and, you know, founder emeritus or whatever his new title is and turning it over to his family. He… He has always been focused on doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because it’s what’s best for me.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

And, he’s… He’s been someone that I’ve looked up to and tried to model myself after as well. Always keeping the patient in the front of your mind as the reason we do what we do.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. And, that is… That is… It’s not only challenging sometimes to do that, but it… When you are very focused on better outcomes for your patients, it is the most rewarding piece of this whole thing. It’s [crosstalk 00:19:29].

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. You can get bogged down in the day to day.

Valerie VanBooven:

Oh, yeah.

Tim Rowan:

In the details, you know? I’ve got my deadlines for my writing and got my sponsors and advertisers to keep happy.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

But, yeah. Every once in a while, you have to come back and say, “Why do we do this?”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. Why did I get into this? Why did I start?

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

Absolutely. So, tell us about the folks and the organization that you recently connected with that are trying to get [crosstalk 00:19:59].

Tim Rowan:

Yeah. It’s kind of related. You know, the whole idea of keeping people alive relates to this pandemic that we’re suffering with for the last 18, 19 months. The… The National Minority Health Association won a federal grant. I think it was $11 million. To use because the grantee, or the grantor, the Health Resource Services Administration, loved their proposal which was to use home care workers as the trusted messages from trusted voices and no one else who got the rest of this… The whole project was 125 million. But no one else who got the other portions of the grant had the idea that the National Minority Health Association had to use home care workers to deliver the message.

Tim Rowan:

And so, the way they decided to use the grant money was to give it away, and so, the home care agency and the home care in home worker and the person getting a vaccination shot each get a cash payment for each shot. So, the person who gets the shot will get 50 bucks.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

The home care worker who says, “Hey, you should get vaccinated. Here’s where you should go,” and helps them to get registered online and take a camera picture of their vaccination card, that home care worker gets 25. Now, think about it. That home care worker probably works for 10 or 20… Probably knows 10 or 20 patients or clients, right? So, they could get each one of them vaccinated.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

And then, the… The employer, the home care agency, gets 25 for every worker, for every shot.

Valerie VanBooven:

Okay.

Tim Rowan:

And then, you can… You can double it because we found out that a lot of home care workers are not vaccinated.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

So, the National Minority Health Association set up the grant and got permission from HERSA to let the home care worker get paid for getting the shot and for encouraging a person to get the shot. So, they get the 50 and the 75 if they get vaccinated themselves.

Valerie VanBooven:

Wow.

Tim Rowan:

And so, it’s been incredibly successful so far. It’s a six month grant, so it’s… I’m spreading the word for them because it’s so urgent to get it done quickly.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

And then… And, somebody jumped on it. We… I… Just yesterday, I interviewed a woman in Florida who has gone gung ho with this. She has… She has meetings. She has vaccination events at schools.

Valerie VanBooven:

Wow.

Tim Rowan:

She’s… She’s… She’s gotten 500 people vaccinated.

Valerie VanBooven:

Nice.

Tim Rowan:

In the western… No, east… Eastern Florida.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

So far. Now… Now, think about it. 500 times 25 times two shots each.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

So, yeah. She’s [inaudible 00:23:16]. She’s jumped on the bandwagon and is just going crazy with this.

Valerie VanBooven:

[inaudible 00:23:21] For a good thing. For a good cause. Absolutely.

Tim Rowan:

Well, yeah. Think about it. You don’t want health care workers going into the home and bringing any kind of infection into that home. You also don’t want them picking up anything in that home and bringing it back to their family. So, it’s… It’s critically important and now there’s mandates, right? CMS and states are telling home care… They’re telling all health care workers they need to get vaccinated, and so, all of a sudden, everybody’s aware of it and it’s become far more urgent. So [inaudible 00:23:57].

Valerie VanBooven:

This might be a good catalyst and, you know, I think… You know, we just talked about recruiting and staffing shortages and I would say that for a whole lot of home care agencies and senior facilities, they’re very afraid to make it mandatory because they’re already short staffed. Now, I know some of them have and some of them will and it will continue to roll that way. But I think a lot of folks are afraid that if they say mandatory to work for me, people will just go down the street. So, this is a great incentive to have the right education, the right message, and to give them a little financial incentive to go ahead and get that done because it’ll be safer for everyone.

Tim Rowan:

And, think about it. When you’re recruiting, you can say, “We’re one of the agencies that participates in this grant. You could make extra money over and above what we pay you if you join in our vaccination effort.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

So, why work for them over there who aren’t involved with the grant? You could work for us.

Valerie VanBooven:

And, get a little bonus every time this happens.

Tim Rowan:

So… Yeah. So, we’re all the way back to the original topic of recruiting and retention.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. Nice. $25 bonuses every time somebody, you know, gets [crosstalk 00:25:16].

Tim Rowan:

Every time somebody gets a shot. Yep. The program is called Flex For Checks.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right.

Tim Rowan:

Their… Their idea is you… You flex your arm. You get the shot. And then, you can check off all the things you can do again because you’re vaccinated.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep. And then… Yeah. So, we’ll put the information on with this video for Flex for Checks as well and send people to your newsletter. Have you written about this?

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yep.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah, I have. I… Actually, the leading… Leading personnel, the executive director and the COO of the association, are people I have known for quite a while and when they asked me to help spread the word, I said sure, and so I’ve written about it a number of times.

Valerie VanBooven:

Great.

Tim Rowan:

And, you can do the same thing with my website. Use the home page search engine and search for vaccine, search for COVID, search for Flex for Checks. You’ll find the articles that I’ve written explaining it.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right. We’ll make sure everybody gets there. That’s awesome. All right. Last two questions. What advice would you give to senior care businesses out there?

Tim Rowan:

My advice to senior care businesses. What… I’m going to have to go on the record with this, so let me think about it for a minute.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t be afraid of technology.

Tim Rowan:

The… The… The way our world and our nation are going today, people are living longer. Here… Here’s what you need to think about. Our health care system is working so well that people are living long enough to experience health care conditions that they never did before because they died first.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yes.

Tim Rowan:

And so, the number of people needing long term care either in a facility or in the home is going to increase for two reasons. One, because they’re aging into conditions that we never had to deal with before, whether it’s heart or diabetes or dementia or all of the above.

Valerie VanBooven:

True.

Tim Rowan:

And, they’re all around my age. So, the baby boomers, all 76 million of us, are going to continue to age into home care. You know, we always talk about how many are turning 65 and becoming Medicare eligible every day.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

Home care doesn’t take care of people my age. They take care of people in their eighties and they’re… But they’re getting there. The baby boomers are approaching that age group and so we’re not going to run out of the need for workers.

Valerie VanBooven:

No.

Tim Rowan:

So, my… My… And, the availability of people who want to take care of the elderly is not likely to increase. So, this leads me to the advice. You’re going to have to do more with less and that… That is made possible by technology. So, remote patient monitoring, technology in the office so that you become more efficient, handheld devices that allow the in home staff to be more efficient, do your EVV responsibilities with as little effort as possible and keep your eye on my newsletter so that you know when the new technologies that you absolutely need are coming out.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done speeches from some stage at some association and I’ve talked about technologies that I have written about and people come up to me afterwards and say, “I’m so glad you told me that. I never heard of that.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Right. Well, you know, like you say, we get bogged down in the day to day of our business and we’re trying to keep our… All of the things afloat that need to float around and make business successful. And, oftentimes, what I see is that these are owners and our managers of our home care agencies and other businesses sort of run out of time to learn something new because they’re struggling to keep up with what’s going on right now. So, I would agree. Your… Your newsletter is essential and, you know, the whole remote patient monitoring situation… I know there’s a lot of companies out there who are doing a whole lot of things and it’s… It’s becoming, you know… I mean, I can’t tell you. We get asked every… Every time we do a website anymore to make sure we add a page about remote patient monitoring from whatever company this person is dealing with.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

So, it’s become very regular and very…

Tim Rowan:

And, there’s a new generation of it. It’s much easier for the elderly people to use today than it was 20 years ago, so it’s more possible to use it in such a way that you can make up for your shortage of staff, keep track of patients and clients more frequently with fewer people in the home, and pay for itself.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yes.

Tim Rowan:

If you do it right, it does actually pay for itself. I’ve heard a lot of arguments over the years. “Oh, we tried it. It doesn’t work.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Valerie VanBooven:

[inaudible 00:30:46] Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

But… But there… There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it and it can… Even though Medicare won’t reimburse for it, you can charge. In non-medical patient pay, you can… You can charge the family for it.

Valerie VanBooven:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Tim Rowan:

And, the communication systems.

Valerie VanBooven:

[inaudible 00:31:05] Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

That you can include the family in group texts and group videos and make them feel more secure, which means they’re more likely to use you than one of your competitors. So, it all… It all comes together.

Valerie VanBooven:

[inaudible 00:31:21]

Tim Rowan:

So, yeah. My message hasn’t changed in 22 years. Rely on technology.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yes. I totally agree with you. I think we need to keep moving forward with learning new things all the time and learning how technology can help, so I’m… I’m all on board with remote patient monitoring. I see… I know it’s… It’s a business strategy and you have to figure that part out, too. But it is… I see it being done. I see it being bundled with the pricing in home care, being bundled with a real human two or three days a week and someone [inaudible 00:31:55], you know, and then the remote patient monitoring the other times when people aren’t there.

Valerie VanBooven:

And, it works really well and it also saves the client money if they are willing to, you know, go that route or if they can. I mean, some people are beyond that. But for the folks that can do remote patient monitoring and other technologies similar to that… Fall detection, things like that.

Tim Rowan:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s a real money saver for those clients who don’t really need a human there all the time but they do need somebody to check on them with real eyes and real ears a few times a week.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

So, it does work. It just… You have to have a business strategy for it and bundle it and do things like that and pass the cost on.

Tim Rowan:

Yeah.

Valerie VanBooven:

But it does work nicely.

Tim Rowan:

And, do your research and shop around. The direction that it seems to be moving today is toward handheld devices that encourage communication.

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah.

Tim Rowan:

So, you can set up a team with the physician, the home care nurse, the non-medical in home caregiver, and the family, and you can mix and match who’s in on each portion of the conversation. You can bring in the pharmacist to the conversation. And then, incidentally, those things connect through Bluetooth with blood pressure cuffs and weight scales.