Industry

Provider Solutions from Data to Delivery

Whether you run a non-medical home care company or a sophisticated skilled nursing facility, aging services is a business. And with a silver tsunami approaching and health care in the process of reforming, you need tools that can help you attract and retain customers and employees while maximizing your revenue. Start here.

Marketing and Sales
Curbing Readmissions
Advocacy and Legal
Facility Operations

Aging-in-Place
Research and Data
Workforce Issues
Quality Improvement

Marketing and Sales

At the end of the day, having a great quality service in the long-term care arena means nothing unless people know about it (marketing) and then buy it (sales). Let's look at some topical articles.

Curbing Readmissions

Transitions of care and hospital readmissions have become big issues not just for hospitals but for their care partners in SNFs and ALs. In fact, it is so pervasive we decided to call it out here on our provider page.

Advocacy and Legal

Politics is always a hot topic and no more so than in the health care arena. Being versed in health care advocacy and the basics of advocacy and lobbying are good skills to acquire and can be good for your business. Contacting legislators, working with the media, tracking legislation are important to learn if you want your voice to be heard.

Facility Operations

Running a healthy operation that provides a caring and warm environment for residents, clients, families, patients and staff is important for the bottom line. Efficient, well-run organizations tend to attract good employees, retain the best employees, and garner top satisfaction ratings that lead to word of mouth referrals. That in turn leads to revenue and with efficient operations - profits. Food service, disaster preparedness, activities, HIPAA, getting paid, environmental services - these are some of the high points of running an operation that are covered.

Aging-in-Place

People want to age in place. The problem is that the system of support services to facilitate aging in place treats symptoms not causes. It is also a siloed, fragmented system of care funded by many disparate sources. A proactive approach to aging-in-place is needed that is coordinated and anticipates needs. It starts with a vision and then incorporates disparate elements - design for aging, monitoring and technology solutions, home health, adult day care - into cohesive solutions that lead to a great quality of life for an aging population.

Research and Data

There are almost 40 million people aged 65+ in the United States. That is almost 13% of the population. By 2030 there will be more than 72 million older persons making up 19% of the population. Someone turns 50 every 8 seconds. Each year more than 3.5 million boomers turn 55. By 2012, America's 50 and older population will reach 100 million. Being on top of this kind of research and data gives you a leg up on the competition and the information to start imaging the "what's next" services that people will need. The numbers don't lie.

Workforce Issues

The health sector is one of the largest industries providing 14.3 million jobs. Ten of the 20 fastest growing occupations are health care related. Health care will generate 3.2 million new jobs between 2008 and 2018, more than any other industry. With that growth comes the challenge of training and managing a diverse workforce. Recruitment and retention, employee satisfaction, career ladders, culture change and leadership are all pertinent issues when running a business in the aging services.

Quality Improvement

Health care quality improvement has traditionally been focused on the clinical aspects of care whether in a nursing home, hospital or in the home. Many skip over the fact that health care quality starts with people. And empowered people led by inspiring leaders are the key to quality improvement in aging services. Culture change, consistent assignment, value based purchasing - a lot of terms of being thrown around. Navigate the health care quality space with basic knowledge and a sound footing that will guide your efforts to make quality, as they say, job #1!

Assisted Living