Industry Podcast Seeks to Educate Public About Home Health Benefits

(May 4, 2018)—A trio of homecare industry organizations is launching a national digital grassroots campaign to educate consumers and professionals about the health benefits of choosing in-home care for older loved ones or family members recovering from an illness.

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Axxess and corecubed are aligning resources to educate the public about the many benefits of the in-home care industry, which includes non-medical homecare, private duty nursing care, medical home health, hospice and other in-home health and wellness services.

A podcast series entitled “Help Choose Home” kicks off the effort to educate consumers and professionals—doctors, hospital discharge planners, insurance companies and others involved in health care decision-making. This ongoing series is hosted by Merrily Orsini, president and CEO of corecubed, an Asheville-based in-home care marketing company, and can be found here, or by searching “Help Choose Home” in the iTunes store. The series is also available for listening on Google, here or on any device, here.

“More than 90 percent of older adults released from hospitals and other health care facilities are appropriate for in-home care,” Orsini said. “But many patients who need care after an inpatient stay are sent to nursing homes or rehab facilities instead of home with care services coming to them.”

Understanding the different types of services available at home, and how to access and pay for each, is also a barrier, as it can be daunting to decipher the differences between non-medical personal care services, private duty nursing care, medical home health care, and hospice and palliative care programs.

“We needed a way to help the public and the health care industry understand that home is the best place to receive and deliver care,” said John Olajide, founder and CEO of Axxess, a home health care technology company in Dallas that is underwriting the grassroots campaign. Olajide initiated the idea for the campaign.

To help spread the word, the campaign will rely on employees, membership organizations, business owners and others in the fast-growing in-home care industry, which employs approximately 2 million people.

“That’s where the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), the nation’s largest home health trade association, comes in,” said NAHC President William A. Dombi.

“Home health care has a vast footprint, and we want to harness the social media power of that footprint,” Dombi added.

Visit corecubed.com, axxess.com and nahc.org for more information.