In 1982, Gretzky was the top scoring ice hockey player in the world. The secret, he said was simple, other players tend to race to where the puck is. Gretzky said he went where the puck was going to be. It is hard to resist the thought that in the mad rush to become a Home care Service Company, many entities are dashing to where they think the business is rather than where it is is going to be.
“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.”
― Tia Walker, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love
Fact is that medical students/Nurses/ paramedics and our communities need a different sort of education, based on different principles from there that is driving the healthcare movement. To understand what this sort of health education looks and feels like, we really do need to get back to basics. They are not a particular set of subjects or teaching methods. They are the underlying purpose that healthcare education is meant to serve in the first place.
To meet them, we need a radical change in how we think about and do the medical schooling. ———– a shift from old model to the one based on entirely different principles & practices. People do not come in standard sizes and shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities.
Caregivers are all around us. But that doesn’t mean they are all great caregivers. When it comes down to what separates the caregivers from the great caregivers there are some marked traits and work habits that stand out.
Some of the traits that make someone a great caregiver:
Empathy and compassion. Working with people in a home care setting, it is essential that a caregiver feel the desire to want to help.
Patience. It helps to sometimes put yourself in the other person’s shoes and see what it might be like to ask people for help.
Reliable. A great caregiver is someone that can be counted on to be there. Those needing home care services need a reliable and dependable caregiver.
Trustworthy. A good caregiver is someone who is trustworthy in this regard, as well as in being trusted to keep the client’s information confidential.
Flexible. A good caregiver will be prepared to go with the flow, being flexible, so that they continue to provide good home care, even if a rigid schedule isn’t being followed.
Home care Business needs trained people who are in this business because they care about people, people who are trained to excel in care-giving, and that they are just not in this because of the salary, perks and other packages.
Its disheartening to see so many good nurses leave the shores every day for better pastures abroad, so how do we retain them and how do we make them a part of this booming business, its time we started more nurses and paramedic training colleges in the Indian subcontinent, and strengthened our Nurses training and their skill enhancement, there are only a certain number of individuals who are trained as caregivers.
It would be prudent on part of some other entities to focus on the ancillary part of the Home care business like starting a accredited course on Caregiver training and increasing the pool of trained workers. Some of the entities could very well tie-up and form a network of hospitals from where they could get a steady stream of people who are in need of Home care Services and they could very well market them to other Home care Companies.
Dr Eric Topol in his book “The creative Destruction of Medicine” predicts that the digital revolution can spur unprecedented advances in the medical sciences, something that has not been thought of before where robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Clinical decision support system like IBM Watson will change the rules of the game.
So basically, optimization of digital resources and getting and retaining top notch care givers are in essence the secret sauce to create the most loved Home Care Company.
Understanding this basic fact is the key to seeing where the home care ecosystem is lagging an – and also how it can be transformed. To do that we have to change the story, we need a better metaphor.
…to be Contd
