Caregivers Case Study Essay

1. My understanding of the business problem: There are two problems in this business that combine to make one big issue. First, we have a major shortage of caregivers. This is not specific to the VNA, it’s happening all over the country. But it’s a big problem for all agencies right now. People just don’t want to do this job because it’s hard and low-paying. Second, we are shortly going to be “graded” on our clients who have potentially avoidable events. All home health agencies are facing this challenge. This includes readmission to the hospital, use of the emergency room or relapses due to lack of care, so it’s in our very best interest to keep clients home and healthy.
2. How I will measure the business impact: As we are going to be graded (by the government) about our percentage of readmissions within a 30-day length of time following a hospital or nursing home stay, this will impact us on our Medicaid reimbursements. There will be a decrease in percentage of payments based on these numbers. Our clients “are risk-adjusted using a predictive model
What data is available: We have data on past readmissions as well as the current state of our client’s health. We know the number of hours clients are allowed by the government, and what caregivers are available and when and where. Also we have data on clients that are currently in the hospital or a nursing home and when they are expected to come home. We have data on previous client’s state of health and when and why they were readmitted to the hospital as well as length of stay. We also know how long our clients are able to stay at home before they have to go to a nursing home for good and for what health reasons, or to the hospital where some of them die.
4. The initial solution hypothesis: Throw more caregivers at the problem – do what we can to immediately recruit more people. This is a short term solution; turnover is tremendous in this industry. We are always going to be looking for more