Kenyon Homecare Consulting's 5 Ways to Prevent Your Home Care Manual from Becoming a Doorstop

Seattle, WA, January 21, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Whether it’s in the field or in the office, how your staff reacts to situations impacts the way you do business and care for customers. Think about your home care manual’s policies and procedures. Do your staff members refer to them when they’re uncertain of what to do in a particular situation? If you’re like 95 percent of agencies, once you’ve completed the licensing and accreditation process your home care manual becomes little more than a doorstop. It sits on a shelf or is buried in an electronic format on your computer—never to be seen again.

Constantly changing industry regulations and state requirements make keeping your home care manual’s policies and procedures up-to-date—and regularly practiced—critical to the success of your agency. Let’s take a closer look at five easy ways to ensure your policies and procedures stay at the top of your employees’ minds.

1. Post a Featured Policy Every Week
While you expect your staff to know all of your agency’s policies and procedures, some are more important than others. Choose one important policy or procedure every week and post it throughout your building, such as in bathrooms and on bulletin boards. You can also email the featured policy or procedure of the week to make sure all of your staff sees it, even if they spend much of their time out of the office.

2. Have a Monthly Review and Contest
Enlist the help of your Quality Assurance team to select critical policies and procedures in your home care manual and post them on a monthly basis. These can be more in-depth than your weekly posts. You can also host monthly contests that include having staff write up a procedure for handling a reviewed policy. Those who are correct could receive a prize, such as a gift card. This will motivate your staff to retain the information they’ve seen posted.

3. Let Your Staff Come Up With Solutions
Identify key challenges in your agency and give staff the opportunity to provide their recommendations for solving them. You could make it a competition, giving prizes to the top two or three solutions. Using a suggestion box is also a great way to get feedback and keep your staff’s opinions in mind. Setup a suggestion box for team members to recommend changes to your home care manual’s policies and procedures, and then pick two or three of the suggestions each month to review and implement.

4. Join State and National Associations
State and national associations help keep home care agencies up-to-date on policy changes in the industry. You can assign an in-house manager the responsibility of keeping track of industry changes. He or she should communicate these changes throughout the agency and be in charge of updating your home care manual’s documented policies and procedures every quarter.

5. Establish a Policy Review Committee
An in-house policy review committee should also take a closer look at your current policies and procedures and decide whether they need to be revised. The committee should meet annually to review your policies and procedures, assess necessary updates, and then report its findings and recommendations. Make membership in the committee an honor with bonus pay to all who are selected to participate. Also, consider having the same review team meet on a quarterly basis with your management, office, and field staff members to evaluate policies and procedures that have been modified and to identify those that need to be modified right away.

The more proactive you are with your home care manual’s policies and procedures, the more likely they are to stay updated and used. If you’re not sure where to get started, consider hiring a home care consultant to conduct an assessment and work with you to develop a plan. Whatever you do, don’t let your home care manual become another doorstop. Kenyon HomeCare Consulting can help keep your policies and procedures current to support your agency’s needs and goals.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive set of policies and procedures that are accreditation-ready and easily customizable, our Marketplace now offers the following home health, hospice, and home care manuals:
· Medicare Home Health Policy and Procedure Manual
· Medicare Hospice Policy and Procedure Manual
· Licensed Home Health Policy and Procedure Manual
· Home Care Policy and Procedure Manual: Non-Skilled Home Care

About Kenyon HomeCare Consulting:
Kenyon HomeCare Consulting gives you a market advantage, promotes creative product development, and offers viable ways to achieve and sustain organizational and fiscal success. Through thoughtful development of customized, comprehensive solutions and hands-on assessments, we develop unique plans of action that allow you to achieve your goals and sustain success. Visit www.KenyonHCC.com or call 206.721.5091 to learn more about Kenyon HomeCare Consulting.