Report from the 7th Private Duty Home Care Leadership Summit & Expo
Posted by
Tom Voiles on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 @ 02:08 PM
I just got back from exhibiting Rosemark at the 7th Private Duty Home Care Leadership Summit & Exposition in Las Vegas, NV. This is the first time that we've exhibited at this show and it was a very interesting one. There were about 250 people at the show: small by general trade show standards but respectable for a Private Duty show.
I had many great conversations with Home Care agency owners and operators. It's always very interesting what things people are focusing on in their operations. Of particular interest at this show seemed to be enhanced communications between staff & caregivers and ways of managing ADL's (Activities of Daily Living).
Rosemark User's Group
I started the conference with a Rosemark User's Group. It was a great opportunity to get some facetime with some of our Rosemark customers, as well as a number of other people interested in learning about Shoshana Technologies and Rosemark.
During the session, most of the time was spent in group conversation, brainstorming together about ways agencies can use Rosemark better, as well as ideas about how Rosemark can grow to meet more of their needs.
A big theme was communication. Using Pending & Completed actions, many of these tasks can be handled very well. There needs to be more interplay between Actions and scheduling. For example, a scheduler should be able to text or email a Shift Offer right at the time of offering, but also have the option to do several at a time. Perhaps this could take the form of a shifts list of ShiftOffers, with the option to pick and choose which ones want to be sent out in one motion.
Presentations
While I mainly stayed on the exhibit floor, I did get the opportunity to poke my head in on a couple of the presentations.
Humana acquires SeniorBridge
The first was a talk about the pending acquisition of SeniorBridge by Humana. There was some buzz about it on the floor, as it represents a big influx of capital and potential influence in the Private Duty market. I think there is some nervousness about such a big player getting into the Private Duty pond. With all the changes going on in the Health Care world, there's bound to be a lot of unpredictable turbulence ahead.
Humana had two different speakers there: Dr. Lance Secretan who helps them with their visioning and team-building efforts, followed by Paul Kusserow the Chief Strategic Officer for Humana. Both speakers were quite interesting, though Paul's powerpoint was extremely hard to see, it was so packed with detail. The overall impression I got was that they want to reassure everyone that they mean business, but they mean to do good work as well.
New Rules Of Home Care Growth in the Post Recession Age
Pat Drea is the Chief Operating Officer of Visiting Angels. In this presentation, she gave her perspectives on the changing realities of home care business. She has been in the industry for a long time and continues to be in a position to see and experience the changes close at hand. Much of her advice to agencies centers around how to stay positive, motivated and active in improving your marketing, operations and business processes.
She had lots to say! Here are a few take-aways that struck me in particular:
- Engage in "Disciplined Optimism" to keep on the right side of the attitude coin.
- "Help people say yes to what they really need".
- Keep and share an accomplishments list with your staff.
- Continually monitor and improve business processes (pick something and improve it, but don't ignore it after it's "fixed", or it will go back to not being fixed)
- Consistently communicate the culture of the company to new caregivers & staff
- Celebrate victories, large & small
- Check out Daniel Pink's book Drive
Software Speed Dating
I also participated in a new event that they were trying out this year called "Software Speed Dating". The event consisted of four software vendors in four corners of a room; participants would start at one, listen to a 15 minute presentation about their product, then move on. The idea is to give a quick burst of information for those agencies who are looking at different software packages.
Attendance wasn't great but those who were there seemed to find it very useful. I used it as an opportunity to refine and clarify my ideas about what makes Rosemark the best agency management system available, so it had a lot of value for me, personally. I think with some tweaks, this could be a very powerful way of helping agencies "shop around" and find the tools they need.
Conclusion
All in all, it was a very good event for us. While we hardly ever get people actually signing up during conferences, the conversations and connections that happen are invaluable. I'm sure we'll be exhibiting and participating as fully as possible next year.
Word is that next year's conference will probably be in Washington, D.C., possibly a little later in the year in order to try to avoid bad weather. I hope to see you there!
If you have any comments or feedback on what you've read here, or if you were at the conference and want to add anything, I'd love to here from you.
