Home Care U - How to Create a Specialty Program—And Why You Need One (Laura Shaw-deBruin Pt. 2)

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

The needs of our aging population are complex, personal, and often go beyond the standard ADLs. Norwood Seniors Network runs several specialty programs in parallel with their home care services. Laura’s here to explain how to create a specialty program and the value it drives for the clients and the business.Enjoying the show? Send me a text and let me know!Learn more about Careswitch at: careswitch.comConnect with the host on LinkedIn: Miriam Allred This episode was produced by parkerkane.co

Welcome back to Home Care U, brought to you by Care Switch. I'm Miriam Allred, your host. I'm really excited to be back today for part two with Laura Shaw DeBruin. Last week, we talked about the incredible journey of Norwood Seniors Network, a key home care brand in Chicago. For those of you that missed it or haven't listened to it yet, Laura is the executive director of Norwood Seniors Network. She's been in home care for 30 years. She's got great energy, lots of ideas, and years of experience to share with us. So I'm really excited to have her back with us. Laura, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. It's great to be back. Last week was a deep dive on your journey, your story, the incredible brand that you've built. Today, we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk about the specialty programs that you all have built. I think that's one of the pillars to your success. And like we all know, building specialty programs is a key part of standing out and differentiating yourself in the market. One of the things that I want to kind of call out here at the start before we get into it is every provider

says they provide great care. You know, I provide exceptional care. We're premium quality. We're a boutique agency. I hear that every single day, time and time again. And home care is competitive and getting increasingly competitive and saying that you're the best isn't good enough unless you can prove it. And I think one of the best ways to differentiate, provide a unique value proposition is doing that through specialty services that drive tangible or quantifiable outcomes. So that's something that you've spent a lot of time on and built a few programs. So today I want to cover the three programs that are in your purview as the executive director, and those are a mobile alert program, a meals program, and a transportation program. So for

everyone that's listening, we're going to kind of, I'm going to dissect each of those programs that Laura and her team have built, and we're going to learn from her as to, you know, what they are, why they've built them, the value they drive, and some of the outcomes that have resulted in them as well. So Laura, if you're ready, let's start with the mobile alert program. Why don't you start just giving kind of a general overview of what that program is? Absolutely. So our mobile alert program is the technology we currently use is ClearArch technology. And we have a contract with mobile health as our provider. But the great thing about us doing it versus the company itself is that we take the intake, we go to the client's house, we speak with the client, we set up the mobile alert. We order it. We change the batteries. We install it.

And we also get reports from the fire department, mobile health, if the battery is low, if they had to use it, if it's a miss button, if they're not using it correctly. So the same group, but it's of us, who go to that client's house. So that's huge compared to, you know, having the life alert people go because they can't, oh, we'll go right away. We'll go that day. We'll go whenever they need us to go. And we know everything that's happening. And with a small office, we could do that. Although all of us are trained in installing the mobile help, we have one person that's dedicated to that. So she does all the intakes. And then sometimes we will share the responsibility of going and replacing the battery or testing it. So I think when we're selling it, that is the selling point, is that you're

not going to have a lot of strangers in your house. We care about you. We are trained in working with older people. It's a form of getting our client to know us and to trust us in our home. And as we talked about, it kind of gets us to have more businesses because we're in that person's home, right? And it's probably the least expensive of our services. And I often think it's probably one of the most important services we offer because 90% of our clients live alone. So if they were to fall, someone would be notified, you know, and I think most of our clients have fallen once or twice. And some are frequent falls, fallers, and I always say to the families, you should get one of these buttons. It's,

you know, a dollar a day. You can't really place an amount on safety and falling, helping. So I love this program. I wish more people would know the benefits and understand the benefits of this program. You mentioned that it gives you an opportunity to get into the home. Is that the why behind this program or how did it come about and what's kind of the core driver of this program and how did it kind of stem from the home care business? Yeah, I would not say that's specifically the why. I would say the why was it was affordable. And as we're going in people's homes for the home care, not everyone could afford the price of a home care, a caregiver coming in. So we determined that we need another option for people to remain safe. And the mobile help button, as you know, is a good option. It keeps someone safe.

So that was probably our why. The second, of course, is to get into somebody's home where you could realize that, you know, this is great for them to use, but there's a lot of food in the house. There's mail piling up. There's laundry to be done. You know, if you are living alone and you might not have a lot of family or friends nearby, you don't really know what's happening in that house. So it gives us an opportunity kind of to see the lay of the land and see what they might need. That would be the second probably purpose.

But the first one is to have options that everyone could afford. Lifeline is an option people could afford. Yeah, I'm glad you kind of broke that down. I think that's a really important factor to consider when you're considering specialty programs is listening to your clients, listening to the population that you're serving. And if cost is the issue, you know, or like a pain point, you know, how do you create options that are there to serve them? So you're referencing the cost. I think you mentioned it. Do you mind sharing transparently what the cost is maybe to you all and to your clients? Sure. The cost, you know, it's not a moneymaker, this program, I will say that, right? Because the cost of the units vary. It starts from $34 a month,

like up to $67 a month. And of the $34 unit, we pay probably, I think we pay $25. So it's a $9, you know, revenue. So it's not a lot, but it's not really meant to be a lot. And then it goes up to $67, which are the more fall button. You have a wristband and you have a button as well. And it's a sensor detector if you were to fall and has more voice activated features. So one of the things that was really important to me when we were shopping for new technology was a few things. The ease of it for our clients. You know, if you have someone with dementia and have a life alert button on them, they're not going to remember to press it. So, they might need the fall sensor, the detector of that one.

If you have somebody with hearing problems, you might need somebody with his voice activated. So there's the, what I chose was to you to select four different units from different price points and different levels of basic. You don't leave your home. You're aware of when you fall. You just need to press that button. Two sensor detectors, a little more bells and whistles for somebody who will need that. For somebody who travels around the country, it works wherever you are. So you could just bring it and it's little. I also looked at, this is silly, but people are embarrassed to wear some of these items. So what is maybe a little bit more cute? What doesn't look so much like an institution? So maybe it's a pretty watch band or a little

necklace. Something that we're constantly getting, not the best positive feedback, is the weight of the pendants. Like if you're wearing that pendant around your neck, you know, and we have to think about our population. A lot of those people are more frail, you know, they might have a little bit of curvature of the spine. So adding a necklace is a little bit, you know, it's just, it's heavy for them. So I look at those kinds of things and I, we give options and then they can choose that. It's an easy process. You know, they want it comes in 24 hours to 48 hours. When we order from the clear arch, it comes on a mat, you know, comes really cool. It comes quickly. And then we have the information that we need. And again, it's us who are the people

that are responding, you know? And if the client has caregivers with them, whether it's our company or not, we have a part of the care plan to do tests. So every month, make sure you're doing a test because you might never use it. You don't know, you know, you hope you never use it,

but it's nice to have. A lot of our clients sometimes were, the old units we were using, were pressing it accidentally and it was going off all the time. Just the way it was made and how it laid on your chest. The new system we're using falls a little bit, falls more down. So they're not constantly pressing on it accidentally. That was a big thing because again, we respond to all those calls. Another benefit for clients who have the life alert and for us is if they were taken to the hospital, we will follow them. So gives us an opportunity to check on the client, gives us an opportunity to say, hey, you don't have caregivers, but maybe when you come home,

you might need some help, or you might need meals delivered. So it's twofold. We ask, we want to check to make sure they come back to us. And two, we offer maybe services to fill those voids when they are not maybe as stable as they once were. So that's kind of the benefits that we have with the whiteboard. One kind of quick question. This isn't really an area of my expertise, but it sounds like you did a lot of research on these units and vetted a lot of companies, you know, saw what kind of options they have. Just curious, in your research, how many companies were you vetting? Are we talking maybe five companies or 25 companies? I'm just curious of like, if providers that are going to go down this path, how many companies are out there that are providing these types of technology? A gazillion. I mean, a lot. I, but you said five. That is exactly what I took. I took five.

Okay. And some of them, I actually went to, as I do a lot of my research, I go to different conferences. So there are conferences where there's only technology. So I will go to that, whether it's software or life alerts or how to do technology with meals better, how to do different softwares for meals, for life alerts. So I did five and I picked out five and then I went to three and then I went to one. One of the reasons why we chose the ClearArch was the customer service of it. We developed a relationship with them. I had known some of the people who worked there prior in another company they worked for. They knew their stuff and they heard us.

This is what I... I needed different units. I needed different price points. They were not aggressive with, oh, you should just have this one or just this one. And again, I didn't want to... I could have had 10 options. Well, I'm not going to give an older person in their family 10 options. It's not fair, right? I don't think it's fair. It's overwhelming, you know? But if you get what you think you need,

then that's the options I took. And it was a very seamless transition. They did a lot because we had another company. So we had to get out of that contract. We had to transfer all our clients. We had to speak with all our clients. They gave us really good marketing materials. And they also made themselves available if families or the clients wanted to speak with them directly. So it was, you know, it was probably a year from start to finish, but it was, it's been worth it. Yeah, that's great. Great context for people who, you know, maybe considering going down this path or you're educating them for the first time.

Just some of these kind of quick questions are really useful. I want to talk about the people that are using this service, are they the same demographic of people that you're providing home care to? And is that something, a factor you consider is, you know, we want someone who, you know, maybe needs this service that can then transition to home care, or is this demographic of people using this service pretty different than your home care demographic? Great question. Of the people that are using our mobile health alert system, 25% are our clients right now. Like they're also getting caregiving, you know. The other 75% are not caregiving clients, not yet. Not sure that will ever be. The demographics don't really change,

but what changes is, is they're probably a little farther out in our meals demographic or some of our caregivers. We have a client in Rockford, which is like maybe an hour and a half away from our office. We have some in the Western suburbs, even though we have caregiving out there, we don't have a health, we are a provider. So they will give them our name. So that's how we get referrals as well, is from ClearArch's referral system,

or the main major hospital groups. So sometimes we'll get the call, like maybe an hour away in a western suburb. And they they're like we know you're far but i'll go out there we'll install it because there's very little labor for us right unless it's constantly dinging for some reason or not you know we might have to go back to make sure the battery is okay or something but it's it's low high results. And those are good for us and our little group of people. So we reach, and I'm not really sure what the difference is of somebody, again, they probably will need home care eventually, but I just think it's an option that is not only less expensive, not intrusive,

they might have caregivers with a different agency. But again, that agency doesn't offer life alert systems. We do. Again, that's what makes senses apart a little bit. And not that we would vet their caregiver, but they know that we also do that. They know that we could do that. They know that we could, you know, do the life alert. It's interesting because of the people that we service a life alert that don't have our caregiving, probably 50% of those people do have some sort of caregiving,

but they heard about our life alert in a different way. I think it's really interesting what you mentioned at the start is it actually broadens your coverage area. You know, like you said, you're actually providing this service to people that live further away, which is, you know, obviously a great opportunity. And if you're willing and able to, you know, make that work, you know, obviously that takes different resources and time, but then it gives you an opportunity. Say you have, you know, maybe five or 10 life learner clients, you know, in a further suburb, you're going to go and consider, you know, maybe, you know, opening up like a satellite office or sending more caregivers out that way. It gives you a way to kind of test the waters in

a new market or a new zip code with a relatively kind of low cost option. So I think that's really interesting. I want to ask about hidden challenges. Now that you've been providing this program for years, you know, what are some of the things that you've learned along the way that have presented themselves as maybe issues or challenges that have come up? The biggest challenge that I have had and hope to never have again was our past life alert company we were using in the sense of it wasn't proactive. It wasn't reactive. It was hard for our clients to get a hold of them um and then making that switch and and telling the families oh we're gonna switch and they we were using that other company for like 10 years but i wasn't happy with any of it and um so that was a challenge in the fact that

our clients would call and say, you know, I keep calling them. They're not responding. My pendant keeps going off. I, um, you know, they don't have me in the system or they didn't like everything goes through us. And then we pass it on to the, to the mobile health or wherever we're using at the time. And sometimes it was not documented. So it was very frustrating. Billing was frustrating for them. Everything was frustrating. So that was our challenge. Now, my biggest challenge is educating the clients to make sure that they charge their batteries. I know that sounds so, but we get a lot of like low battery, low battery, low battery,

or we get a lot of low batteries. This unit is great, but you have to charge it every so many hours. So I was on the phone with them, our representative a few weeks ago, and I'm like, work on longer battery times for our clients, even though I think it's four days. If you're wearing it, it's four days. I think it's

seven days if you're not wearing it, which people don't wear it. How can you make that life battery longer? That would be something, you know, I've learned. So when I'm shopping, and next time if I shop again, that would be something I would totally look at because I thought four days was a lot because the other unit we were using, it was not even 24 hours, they were losing their battery life. So I was happy with four hours. But, you know, again, if you're alone without a caregiver, without a family member, you might not remember to charge that battery. When you have a caregiver or a family member or we're reminding you, you know, as you know, the last episode we talked about that we're affiliated with a nursing home. And we have several clients in the nursing home that uses them because the

nursing home in general doesn't use those. The memory care uses it, you know, more of a wander bracelet, but they don't have to use them. So we provide those. And I can't tell you how many times that I've gone over there and it's in the care plan and I'm asking people to make sure they're charging it. There's hundreds of people around. So it shouldn't happen, but it happens, you know, that people are not charging. So that's probably my biggest frustration now. And it's not our client's fault.

They just don't remember if they don't have someone helping remember. But I think as the technology progresses, I would like to see the battery last a lot longer. That would be my, you know, maybe I could invent something. It's probably there, you know. Again, you don't always want to change what you're doing because the changes are enough.

So it's not like I'm going to go change that, but going forward, if something comes up and they know very well, if there's another unit that has a longer life battery, I'll put that in the mix because I would try to really sell that because that's a big one. Specifically for our clients who are out and about. Our clients that are more homebodies, it's not such a big deal. But our clients that are out and about traveling or going to stores or doing activities, if their battery dies while they're doing it, they have to go back where the base of the battery is. So that's, you know, and I don't know if I thought about that. Like I thought it would last forever.

I thought people would automatically charge their batteries. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. This is really useful information. It may seem kind of, you know, basic or fundamental to you that have been through it. But hearing, you know, anyone hearing this for the first time, it's really useful. You know, a really important factor is, you know, charging the batteries. Obviously, that stems from like educating the family and the client themselves. And that's a whole piece of any specialty program is making sure, you know, they understand the why, the how,

you know, the value, the needs of the specific program. So I think that's really great. I do want to kind of transition into our next, next program. That was a great synopsis of that program. I think we learned a lot. I want to talk next about the meals program. This is, you know, maybe one of your core differentiators that, you know, is more unique that I've even heard. So I want to talk about this meal meals program, and you may have to kind of reference some of what we talked about last week, kind of the core structure and the nursing program, et cetera. But why don't you start by giving an overview of this, this meals program? Absolutely. So our home delivered meals program stems from the nursing home kitchen where all the meals are made. So they're made fresh every day,

five days a week. And in the meals program, there are two meals, a hot meal and a cold meal. And you could order as many meals a day as you want. And some people do. Some people order two meals a day, three times a week. You could do what you want. In the selection of the meals, there's a menu that comes every month with two entrees that you could choose from and then desserts you could choose. And then every day you get a hot meal and a cold meal. Most of our clients who get the meals eat the hot meal during the lunchtime and save the colder meal for the evening because then it's hot and it stays hot. Our meals program is run by a manager that I spoke of in our last episode,

and he does the menus and inputs all the menu choices, does all the billing, and then does all the routes, and then goes in the kitchen every day for a couple hours and oversees the um the putting together of the meals and he's a big part of that the kitchen the night before does the cold meals or the morning early in the morning puts the cold meals in a lunch bag and then our hot meals are done right at like i would say 11 30 and all the meals are out by 10 minutes to noon so they're done pretty quick um or yeah so and then they're dropped off and everyone has a route so we have volunteers volunteers who do our routes and we have about, it depends how many meals. So we could have as low as 34 meals a day delivered to up to 90 meals delivered. It

really depends on the day. Monday, Wednesday, Fridays are our biggest meal days. Tuesdays and Thursdays for some reason are our lower meal days. And then on Fridays, I would say probably 20% of our meals client orders more than one meal for the weekend. The meals are pretty good size. So if you're living alone, you could probably have, you know, get three meals a week and then it'll probably last you five days. There's a milk option. If you want milk that comes with your meal, we'll do that. The meals are considered heart healthy and we don't really change anything.

You could put, if you don't like bologna, then you could put in, you don't like bologna and then we'll give you turkey or ham or, you know. And the meals are cycled every season. So that's important to know. So they're not always the same meals. And then like the colder months here, we have more comfort food, you know, and then in the summer months, they're lighter options. On Fridays, there's always a fish option, whether it's lunch or not, there's always a fish option whether it's lunch or not there's always a fish option and then there's you know there's you know there's the the menu is varied and if you're

getting meals five times a week sometimes some of the meals might become monotonous because it's a rotating basis but for for the most part, people really enjoy the options. And if they're wanting something, we will bring it to the kitchen. Or if they're liking something, if I'm getting a lot of calls or compliments, you know, it's usually desserts. I'm not going to lie. They'll find this one dessert that they love it. And then they'll put it on the menu more. The menu is dictated through what they're serving at the nursing home, and then we have input in it. So we meet as a team, and we see what the menus are. Neil, my meals manager, and I sit down, and we look at what's repetitive.

We'll try to change some days to other days. So if you're getting your meals always on Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays, you're not getting in the same rotation. So we try to change that. And then the desserts too. Desserts are very important to our clients. So we try not to overduplicate them if they're having the same dessert every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

The kitchen, you know, we have kitchen help. And again, we contract a portion of our budget and pay for the kitchen staff, the supplies, the oversight. But the brunt of the labor is done by our meals, volunteers. Yeah, you're taking that in the right direction. I'm curious about how this program is funded. Like you say, the nursing home is so instrumental, that kitchen, having access to that, you wouldn't probably be able to do this without that. So break down the finances a little bit further as to where the costs are coming and going and who kind of has ownership over what. So yeah yes. So we contract from the

kitchen a percentage of our budget for the meals, but the meals manager salary is out of our budget. As is all the supplies, the kitchen service comes out of our budget. However, it's nice to have a big kitchen. It's nice to have a nutritionist who checks all the meals, who does the healthy meals program. So it kind of comes from their budget, even though it's a very small amount compared to our budget. Every year there is an increase, because of inflation of the food.

This has been a couple higher years than we've ever had with the inflation. And even not only the food, but the containers that they come in. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, they keep warm. So it's a special container that they keep warm. The container is in three parts. So we're not overlapping food. You know, we're very careful of what we're transporting. And this is a side note, but we can't overlapping food. You know, we're very careful of what we're transporting. And this is a side note, but we can't transport soup. Everyone, though, wants soup. But we can't, it doesn't transport well.

You know, so we have to look at that. And we have to look at the aesthetics of it. When we're closing the cover, does it look clean? And we're, you know, you don't want to get a meal with gravy coming out. I mean, it has to look presentable. So we take a lot of time with that. We do, though, apply for two pretty significant grants every year for our meals program to offset some of the cost of the meals.

And then our volunteers do this from their big hearts and but at the end of the year or Christmas time we do provide them with gas cards I usually try to write a grant for that with our foundations person so we write a grant for that we just recently wrote a grant this past week last week to apply for some more home deliverers meals money because the margins are so low. You know, it's not really, again, a big revenue maker. And we really don't try to increase the cost of the meals. I've been here seven years and we've increased the cost twice, which I think is really good considering inflation has gone up every single year. And it was 50 cents and a dollar. So it wasn't even very, very expensive. And as I talked

about in the last episode, it's more than just a meal. So we're doing actual physically checking on these clients, making sure they're okay, making sure they're safe. So it's, you know, it's a great program. And I couldn't, we could not do it without our volunteers. There's no way we could do it. Yeah. I wanted to, I wanted to ask about that. I love that this program is driven by volunteers. As amazing that it, as that is, it is also probably a challenge, you know, maybe to find volunteers, to find reliable volunteers. How has that process gone of, you know, finding these people and then relying on them to show up every day? Yeah, well, that's a great question. So we, part of our

umbrella from a nursing home is our volunteer program, which is called Norvolution. And they probably have, I don't know, 300 volunteers total that help out with this organization. The meals program has 55 ongoing, loyal, dedicated volunteers to the program. They've been with us for a long time. I mean, some come and go, but there's a group of them that have been volunteers. They've been with us for a long time. I mean, some come and go, but there's a group of them that have been volunteers since I've been here. So at least seven years, right? They have probably volunteered about almost 6,000 hours a year. They have driven over 22,000 miles to deliver the meals. I mean, we are grateful to have those volunteers. So we have a foundations, a volunteer director, Carrie, who is in charge of getting us our volunteers, and she oversees them, but they, the volunteers don't report to us if there's some any issues or Neil and Carrie work together if some of our volunteers

call in which happens and then one of us will deliver the meals so whether it's Neil or myself and I actually love to do that because a couple ways I want to see how the program's going I want to check on some of the clients how they're doing it's good to have a face-to-face with somebody to see how they're doing. So I couldn't imagine. We have been so blessed to have these great volunteers. I think I might've mentioned the last one that during the pandemic, they did not take a break. They delivered all those meals every day without fail. No one stopped delivering meals. I mean, we did contact less, but they still checked on the person. They just still made contact with that person. I don't think it's that difficult to get the volunteers because it takes maybe an hour. And we don't have't have them you know one of the reasons why we

only go our meals program only goes a five mile radius and that's really driven by two things the temperature of the meals keeping them fresh and hot and we don't expect the volunteers to be driving all in operation and then that's why sometimes if we have 70 meals a day, we might do seven routes. So you have 10 meals to deliver. And again, it's in a five mile radius. And we have software that manages our routes. So it's like how it makes sense that they get a route sheet. Some of them put it in their navigation, but we do paper routes because some of our volunteers

don't do the navigation. So they have a choice. They could do the navigation or they could do the paper route. Then it will say the name and the number. And then we go from when they're dropping off, how vital it is that they're actually dropping off and they're actually checking in with the clients because sometimes something's going on. And if it wasn't for our volunteers, you know, our clients, something could have happened. Yeah, you've said multiple times this phrase of it's more than a meal. And offline, you shared a story with me about quite literally a life saved through one of these meals. Do you want to take a minute and just share that story briefly? Sure. So it was this past winter. It was a very, very cold day. It was

very cold. And we have a volunteer and he happens to be a volunteer who's been around for a long time. And he rang the doorbell for this client. He didn't come to the door. So he waited a little bit. You know, sometimes people take a little longer to get into the door. They don't hear them or the bathroom, whatever. He waited. Then he called us and said he's not answering the door. So we called the emergency contact people that are on his emergency contact list. One happens to be an amazing neighbor, but the neighbor wasn't home,

but he did answer his cell phone. And he said, well, I haven't seen him, but I don't always see him, but I'll come home. You know, I'll get home to help you guys out. And then we called the son who's in Wisconsin, and he's like, okay, let me try to call my dad. And we call, call, who's in Wisconsin. And he's like, okay, let me try to call my dad. And we call, call, call to no avail. So we call 911. They went into his house. He was found unconscious. The paramedics think he was probably fell that the night before. So he was

probably on the ground at least 12, maybe 15 hours. He actually turned off the heat. It was less than 50 degrees in his house. You know, he was in his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, unconscious. So he actually saved his life because he could have just dropped off the meal, put it between the doors, put it somewhere, and not saw this client. I mean, so it's more than a meal. We actually do a physical look, you know, say hello, see if, and this volunteer always, I guess it's his last stop. So it was this gentleman's last stop.

So I guess he always makes sure he's doing okay. They have a little bit of a conversation. So the paramedics came, took him away. So our volunteer went into the house turned on the heat cleaned some of the dishes got everything kind of settled talked the neighbor came home the neighbor you know made sure that everything was okay this client actually gets a caregiver but four hours later my caregiver comes from 4 to 8 p.m. So we know this client fell after 8 p.m. So we sent the caregiver instead of his home to the hospital,

and that's where he stayed. He went to rehab, but the paramedics are certain that he would not be alive if it was not for our volunteer finding them. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. I think that just so perfectly illustrates, you know, more than a meal going above and beyond that face-to-face interaction for these people that may not see anyone throughout the day. You know, what just the value and the weight that a simple meal and that meal delivery and that interaction can have on someone's life. I think that's so, so powerful. I think that's a perfect place maybe to wrap up this one. I want to make sure we have time to get to this last program, which is your transportation program. So this is the third one that we want to cover. Give us a quick overview of this transportation program and what service you're rendering. So our transportation

program is that we have a vehicle, we have one vehicle, it's kind of like a sit between a station wagon and a, you know, like a utility vehicle. We have one, it's wrapped. So I think I bring up that point because I think it's important that when we come to the door you know it's us it's our car it's rat there's there's definitely identifying marks on it who you know there's five of us in the office that drive we are the drivers you know we will pretty much go anywhere within like Cook County you know um which is it's big it's large but most of our clients are probably within a 10 mile radius since we do charge by mile I think one of the challenges is that we lose some clients because we charge by mile and it's round trip. So before they even get to their destination, it might be too costly for them. But for the people

within the neighborhood, we are busy every day. We have transportation every single day. Before the pandemic, we had a designated driver who did all the driving. Since everything shut down in the pandemic, we lost that person. And we didn't have a designated driver. And it took probably 20, 22 for people to get back in our cars. Even though we put up a screen, we did everything we can to make the person safe, but it was still, I mean, again, you're dealing with an older population who wasn't leaving their homes, you know, but people do have appointments and they do have, you know, dialysis and chemo. So some people had to do it. So we try to make it as safe as possible. And again, it's the same people. So we're coming to your door, right? And we're

doing door to door transportation. I think that's really important too. You just don't meet us at the corner unless you want to, but we go up, we get the person. I would say 80% of the clients that we have have some type of mobility issue, whether it be using a cane or a walker or just unstable on their feet. And a lot of our clients live in single family homes with five stairs coming down to the driveway or to the parkway.

So we do that. And then we drop them off to their destination and we take them in wherever they need to go. Some of our clients will say, oh, I'm fine. And they're fine to go into the doctors themselves. Most of them are not. So we will take them door to door, literally. we pick them up and then we bring them back home and make sure they get in. It is so valuable that we do that, even though it takes a lot of time. Sometimes, honestly, the drive is less time than it takes us to walk somebody up and down their stairs. And we make sure they're safe. We make sure they get into their house. We make sure everything is okay. You know, an Uber can't do that. They don't do that. I mean, I think they have a separate part of Uber now that does that. But our staff are

trained, you know, they're trained in older care, they're trained in CPR, what to do, behaviors, you know, if something were to happen, we would take care of it. A lot of our clients who are taking to get like dialysis or radiation or something, sometimes have to stop in the middle of the trip and we have to stop and find a bathroom so they can use the bathroom. I'm not sure you're going to get that with other transportation, you know, and we will do that. Are most of these transportation clients also receiving home care or what percentage would you say are? I would say maybe 20% are receiving home care because if you're receiving home care, you could have a caregiver who drives. So if you're looking for someone to take you

places, then you get a caregiver that would drive. If we can get a caregiver that drives, then we'll take you places. The other 80% probably don't have caregivers or they don't have people who drive them. Yeah, I would say about 80% are non-caregiving. Now, it doesn't mean they can't be at one point or come to be a caregiving client. We have a transportation client who recently signed up for meals. She didn't know about the meals program, but on our wrapped car, it says home-delivered meals. And in the conversation, she was asking about the meals program. So she signed up for the meals. So now she has two things. Yeah, that conversation, she was asking about the meals program. So she signed up for the meals. So now she has two things. Yeah, that's part of why I asked the question is,

yeah, to my understanding, you know, caregivers can also be a piece of kind of a pivotal piece in that transportation. But there, I'm assuming, you know, this was another need born out of clients, you know, the community that, you know, need transportation services, but don't necessarily need home care. It's kind of that similar concept of a service that was born out of, you know, just listening to people and providing that service. Absolutely. And caregiving, you know, you know, traditionally caregivers don't drive, especially if you're near a city like Chicago, where public transportation is abundant. No one needs to, you know, I mean, coming from total suburbs and couldn't wait to drive at 16.

I'm shocked about people who like I've never learned to drive. I'm like, well, what do you do? Well, they don't need to learn how to drive where I thought, oh, you know, the independence itself. But so a lot of our caregivers don't drive. So it was the biggest need. I will tell you a story. In 2019, in about October, I did a needs assessment with a couple local hospitals, home healths. We collaborated to this great needs assessment.

The biggest need was transportation. I was thrilled. I'm like, well, we have a car. If it continues, we can get another car. We have written grants. We've not always been, we had not gotten any yet, but I keep, every year I apply for the same grant of getting more of a motorized wheelchair accessible van. Because that's a huge need. The biggest need, though, was transportation. You know, it's the hardest thing to give up for an older person, but their biggest need. So I was thrilled. And then the pandemic hit. We were busy. We were so busy.

I mean, like I said, you know, we had a driver who probably was on four or five calls driving a day, which is a lot considering the time it takes to get somebody from A to B sometime. I am curious, are most of these clients receiving multiple rides a week or what is kind of the typical schedule for one client? Is it, you know, one ride a week or four a month or, I know it varies, but what's kind of the typical schedule schedule i would say most of our clients are frequent riders we have a client that does radiation we have a so it's a couple of times well it's a couple times a week right now we have a gentleman who does dialysis so that's a couple times a week so kind of putting together that puzzle of you know mr, Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown might have arrived at the same time, then one of us will go, and if we can, if time is available, and use our own cars. We have insurance

on all of us with our company car and our personal vehicle, and they also insurance, you know, North Life Society. So we're covered with that. And then they sign the consent form and an agreement, you know, that we're going to be taking them. I would say very few of our current transportation clients are one-time people. We're constantly doing that. You know, we had a ride today. She probably uses us four times a week on different appointments, a lot of medical appointments. You know, we have a woman who uses us once a month, once a week to get her hair done. We drop her off, we pick her up. But I would say most people are multiple users every month. Absolutely. Yeah. Talk about the logistics of scheduling this. Are people scheduling,

you know, appointments, things, sometimes they're recurring. Sometimes it's sporadic. You know, I need a driver tomorrow for X reason. How, talk about kind of just like the logistical backend of this. Are people reaching out all the time? Is it pretty set schedule? Are you using, yeah, maybe a software to track some of this? We are not currently using the software. We just track it ourselves. Listen, the logistics are difficult because the need is so great and we don't always have availability. Again, it's the same group here taking everybody. We kind of look at everyone's schedules. I think I mentioned it last time. We have our favorites. Who wants to take Mrs. Smith?

You know, who wants to, you know, take some, you know, we have a client named B, everyone loves to go with her because she's so lovely and she's so fun. And it's pretty much, if someone inquires about a transportation, we send out an email, we update our transportation schedule, and then you kind of shoot like, oh, I have time, I'll do it, or i could do it um we all take turns um the logistics is is that sometimes we have way too many rides and not enough availability we ask people to give us at least 48 hours of notice we are not a taxi service you can't call us and say oh can you take us not us? Not that we don't want to, we just probably don't have the availability.

And we, yeah, we would if we could, but we don't. So I think that if it, like, since the pandemic, last month, February, was our busiest month by far. We had a lot of transportation. And I applaud my staff to making sure that we tried to help every single person who called. March is looking the same way. We're pretty busy. So maybe we would hire somebody again. But again, you have one vehicle, so you're limited. Unless like, I'll drive clients. I don't care in my car.

But you're, you're limited. So we really have to think that way out if it made sense to hire a designated person. Again, not a huge moneymaker, but this year is the first time that I increased the prices. Seven years. And I kind of changed the way we were billing because we weren't making even though we're using staff i'm already paying for because they're here still we're not making any money you know i mean so i kind of had to relook at that revamp it and still i think we're good value because we are literally door to door. We are safe. You know, it's the same people. We know what we're doing. We're trained. We're just not dropping you off and picking you up and hope you get there. That brings value. The last question I think I want to ask to kind of round out this program is how concerned or disconcerned are you

with Uber, Lyft, some of these other, you know, transportation providers, obviously very different structure, you know, very different companies, but do you, you know, lose sleep over them? Are you concerned with them? Or do you partner with them? If, you know, someone reaches out and you can't do, you know, a ride in 15 minutes, do you refer them? So just kind of your general thoughts on that. I'm not afraid, you know, I'm not scared of it. I think we all have a niche and I think that we have a specialized, specifically that we're very neighborhood friendly and we've been doing this for 30 years. Maybe not transportation, but we've been around for 30 years. I will suggest to people if they need immediate transportation, I will say call an Uber, call Lyft. That's difficult for an older person who does not do apps on their phone.

There was a taxi service here years ago, and sadly, the pandemic put them out of business. It was called the pink taxi. There were pink taxis. There was three of them in a community near here. I referred them all the time. They referred us all the time. The pandemic took him out of business. I was saddened because they helped a lot of our clients and they had also a big heart. They would make sure they were okay. So partnering that would be tough. I know that Uber has like Uber Medical or something that they're using. But still, I think it's different. I think we have a different value that we could bring, different reputation.

I will tell families to call a cab. But most families or clients will say, well, is she going to walk me to my doctor's office? Is she going to walk me inside into the lobby? Probably not. No. And then we will also wait. It's for a fee, but we'll wait. So if they need someone in their office with them, we will also do that.

So sometimes that's an added bonus, especially if it's like a quick appointment and they don't have to wait for someone to come back to pick them up or they have to stop at the Walgreens to get a prescription. We'll do that too. A lot of places will do that, you know. So I think it's good to have competition, but I don't see them as my competition. Yeah, I think that's a great response, you know, really differentiated services, you don't really compete, you know, for the same client for the same experience. But I just wanted to get kind of your take there. In just our last couple minutes, I want to zoom out and ask just kind of a couple of general questions. You mentioned

a few times that these programs aren't necessarily, you know, big revenue drivers. So I want you to share, you know, what the value is, you know, beyond what the program offers. What is the value that these programs are driving to the business as a whole? The value is the mission, the mission of our organization, that we are to provide care, nonprofit organization to seniors. And I also think that it gets people in the neighborhood or the surrounding neighborhoods a level of trust. And that is what we do. Yes, if you do the caregiving,

it is more of a revenue maker, absolutely. But it also gets people familiar with the bigger picture if they needed housing. So we're kind of the pre, and then they go to maybe assisted living or memory care. And it's still the same organization. The transition is probably much more smooth than a traditional going into a home care because we are affiliated with them. I also think that I know at one point when we were talking about, because I think I mentioned last time, we did lose one of our programs, our social outings. I hope to get it back. But a lot of our clients say they don't know what they would do without us in those situations. And that kind of keeps

it going. I mean, we are profitable most months, but we are profitable in the fact that we are well known, we are trusted, we are a good neighborhood, surrounding area, place to go. And I think it's the mission of Norwood Life Society and the mission of Norwood Seniors Network that keeps us going. Right. Yeah, you said it last week, reshaping aging. You know, that really is the motto of the company. And these programs fuel that motto, giving people options, meeting people where they are, not offering kind of a one size fits all service, but offering them what they need. And then as their needs evolve,

you know, you have more alternatives, more options to share with them. So I think, you know, this is really great to dive into these programs. You've spent a lot of time and effort, you know, probably kind of the blood, sweat and tears in these programs. And so I think it's great for you to share what you've learned, how you structure them, you know, some of the value that they drive for other agencies that are considering offering these programs or just, you know, vetting and thinking about specialty programs in general. I think this is a great, you know, foundation for people to get a taste of them. So thank you for sharing everything so openly and transparently. I know you shared some really specific things and I think it's great for people to know what they're getting

into with some of these programs. Yeah. Thank you. Any last advice or, you know, insight that you'd share with someone that is, you know, considering adding a specialty program and has reservations, what would you share for kind of an owner in that seat? I think that if you know there is a need, that you should explore it. I think that nothing is not worth exploring. Doesn't mean you necessarily have to implement it, but explore, you know, like when we were looking to redo our social program, I reached out to like a hundred of our. And there were maybe three that would do the social outings right now. So it's not worth it. So you have to know what your needs are. So if you do like a mini needs assessment, or like when people call us, we track every single call.

So if they're asking for something, like really listen, like if they're looking for something specific, really listen. But I would say try it or try at least investigate it, at least research it. Because I really believe having these additional community based programs are keeping people in their home, whatever that means, as safe and comfortable as possible. And I wouldn't give that up for the world. You're such a great example of listening to clients. You have advocated for home care poll surveys, for feedback, for closing the loop. You kind of embody that concept.

And I think that's a great tie into this concept of listening, surveying your people regularly, asking them what they need, asking what service they need that you don't offer. And that can be a really good indicator of what people want and what they need, asking what service they need that you don't offer. And that can be a really good indicator of, you know, what people want, what people need, and that can, you know, kind of light the fire of what programs you should start and the why behind them. So, Laura, thank you so much for joining me last week and this week. We've covered so much good information. You've shared so much and I really appreciate you, all you do for your market, all you do for this industry. I know you've been, you know, kind of an advocate, a chair on different boards for this industry. And so you've done a lot and

we just appreciate all that you do. Ah, thank you. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you everyone for joining us and we'll look forward to seeing you back again next week. Laura, thanks again. Thank you. That's a wrap. This podcast was made by the team at CareSwitch, the first AI-powered management software for home care agencies. If you want to automate away the menial of your day-to-day with AI so that you and your team can focus on giving great care, check us out at careswitch.com.