December is a time to give thanks, deck the halls, evaluate your agency’s performance, and plan how to improve on it next year. Review every department: celebrate the areas that have surpassed their goals, and create a development plan for the areas that are falling short. If the same areas continue to fall short of their goals, it may be an indication that your vision statement needs revising.
Your vision statement should evolve as the guidelines and methodologies of home care, home health, and hospice care evolve. Listen to feedback from your nurses and your patients. Don’t limit your opportunity for growth or be blind to the need for change just because that change may not fit your current vision statement.
Here’s some points to help evaluate the relevance of your vision statement:
Start with your staff.
Provide your nurses and assistants the tools and training they need to perform efficiently in the field. Get their input on what they would like to see your agency accomplish in the coming year. According to a Forbes article by Joseph Folkman, staff members who buy into an agency’s vision are more engaged in their jobs, making them productive, satisfied, representatives of your agency. An engaged nursing staff will deliver quality care and promote higher CMS Quality of Patient Care and Patient Survey Ratings.
Never forget that home care is a people business, and people trust relationships.
If your referrals are lacking, make sure your vision for 2020 includes relationship building; keep your face in front of the nurse practitioners, clinicians, and physicians referring patients to your agency.
Educate your referral partners.
Never assume that your partners are aware of all you can do. Promote different areas of service on each visit. Ask how you can help them. Find out what their needs are and how you can offer support, i.e. Care plan Oversight or Transitional Care Management.
Stay relevant when marketing to physicians.
Always promote your service as an extension of a physician’s care. Discuss improved patient outcomes, and share details about progressive care programs such as telemonitoring. If you don’t currently offer a telemonitoring program, consider offering it in the coming year.
Promote palliative and hospice care.
In your vision for 2020, be mindful that the more people who are enlightened about symptom management, comfort care, and the support hospice provides patients and their families, the more people your agency will be able to serve.
As the terrain of home health and hospice care continue to change, there is no harm in adjusting your tread to improve your traction.
Have a safe, healthy and prosperous 2020, and remember TAG Partners is here to help!
“Vision statements should demonstrate how the world will be different now that your business is in it.” ______ Shannon DeLong, House of Who