What's the benefit of employing a home care agency rather than hiring individual providers?
The benefits for hiring a home care agency as opposed to individual providers are several. And I think probably a family can do it on their own. A home care agency is equipped to do things like screening beforehand. A good home care agency will do tuberculosis testing which we don't think about unless there's a problem with it; they'll do criminal background checks, reference checks. Other things that are advantage of a home care agency, that if there is a problem with one person, you can find replacements in an easy manner. It's very, very, common for people to find one wonderful in home care provider independently that is their dream. The problem is the number, typically for an older adult, the time they need somebody starts increasing. And that wonderful person isn't available at night so they bring in their families or their friends, or somebody they met at the bus stop and it gets out of control. They are not there for emergencies. A reliable home care agency will have somebody on call 24/7 so if there is a problem at night, they can take care of it. The other thing, and I think probably as much as important as the skill set and the availability of a care worker, is the individual characteristics of that care worker and the family member. So when you have a large pool to choose from, you not only are choosing someone that can do the task, that can make sure to bathe Mom and make her meals the way she like it, but maybe has the extroverted personality that she wants as a companion, or knows how to be quiet and goes in the other room when she's not needed, depending on the individual preferences of that family.
