After more than a decade in the making, Evonne Keeler finally got an online platform for home care workers off and running earlier this week.
The Home Health Community Organization (HHCO) — which connects home care workers with training, professional development tools and other resources — started as a germ of an idea when Keeler was the director of a New Jersey home care agency.
“This is a very large workforce that day in and day out does a very difficult job,” Keeler told McKnight’s Home Care Daily. “There are many who want to up-skill themselves or want to know how to take care of a patient a little better, but they really had nowhere to go.”
HHCO offers home care and home healthcare workers, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and certified nursing assitants three membership options: a free membership provides access to a monthly newsletter and a jobs board; a $50 annual gold membership provides access to those resources, plus discounts from more than 400,000 vendors; and a $160 annual platinum membership includes all of those benefits, plus free online training and continuing education classes through CareAcademy.
An estimated 3.4 million workers make up the fragmented home care and home healthcare industries. Since most of those workers care for clients independently, they have little interaction with colleagues in the field and, therefore, lack a sense of community.
Keeler hopes HHCO will fill that void, but she also hopes small mom-and-pop agencies can benefit from it as well. Those agencies are facing intense competition for workers from large companies that are offering workers everything from signing bonuses to educational opportunities. Last spring, LHC Group invested $20 million in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s College of Nursing as a way to train and recruit workers.
“We understand that it isn’t feasible for some of these smaller companies to provide those resources. We are trying to lift that weight off of their shoulders,” Keeler said.
HHCO has just begun signing up members. Keeler admits the online platform is a work in progress in part because she wants members to help in the development of additional content. That might include things like resume writing or a chat room where workers can meet.
“We want to provide them with a membership platform where they can share their experiences, their challenges and have sort of a collective sounding board, ” Keeler said.
Keeler is also working to develop partnerships with community colleges and technical schools in hopes of providing additional online and on-site training, as well as more services to HHCO members.
