Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars

AI for Home Care: What Leaders Should Know

On this episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars, host Ken Accardi takes a turn in the interview seat to answer an important question: What should home care and adult day care leaders know about artificial intelligence (AI)? With help from his colleague Sowpha Umashankar, Ken explores AI's current role, practical applications, and future in home care. Whether you're new t...

Doing It Right with Leadership

In the second part of her “Doing It Right” series on the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast, industry veteran Ginny Kenyon returns to talk about leadership — not as a title, but as a responsibility. Ginny, who Ken Accardi describes as worthy of the “Home Care Hall of Fame,” shares her hard-earned wisdom on what it truly means to lead a successful and compassionate home care organization.

Gin...

This episode is a little different and I hope you like it. I was interviewed on another podcast called "The Millennium Spotlight" by heralded radio announcer and podcast host, Jordan Rich.  I greatly appreciate you listening to Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars and if you'd like to know a little bit more about me then please give this episode a listen.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponso...

In this episode of the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast, host Ken Accardi sits down with Ginny Kenyon—a veteran home care consultant who grew her agency from the ground up and has since helped launch hundreds of agencies. The conversation, titled "How to Make Your Home Care Customers Happy - Forever!", dives into Ginny’s journey and reveals the secrets behind client-centered care that truly makes a differenc...

The home care industry is on the verge of a major transformation. With the aging population rapidly growing and workforce shortages intensifying, innovative solutions are needed now more than ever. In this episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars, host Ken Accardi speaks with Bob Roth, an industry veteran and leader at Cypress Home Care, about the future of home care and how technology, collaboration, and new models of car...

This episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars features Melody Ray, Executive Director of ReSOARces, a nonprofit in Kentucky.  Melody discusses self-direction programs for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. These programs enable participants to direct their care and lead more fulfilling lives.

The episode begins with host Ken Accardi providing a historical perspective on disability servic...

This episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars features Jen Waldron from Augusta Software, addressing the prevalent issue of caregiver job applicants ghosting employers. Jen identifies key challenges in the hiring process and offers insights into optimizing caregiver recruitment.

The episode begins with a discussion of a common question: "Where are the good caregivers?" Jen dispels the myth of hidden talent pools, ...

Let’s face it, every person reading this synopsis (and hopefully listening to the accompanying podcast episode) would benefit by increased employee retention in their organization.  I’m sure that you’ve lamented the loss of caregivers, direct service workers or staff that you had hoped would stick with you longer and tried to think of what causes these losses.  I’m sure that burnout is one of the leading causes that comes to mind.

O...

In this episode of the podcast, we were honored to meet with the United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging, Kari Benson. Her entire career has been focused on the promotion of Home and Community Based Services for older and disabled individuals.

I asked the secretary what the most important message was that she needed to share in this podcast episode and without hesitation, her answer was to say thanks to our indu...

79 year old Sam Simon could tell that his memory was fading and finally was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.  Faced with this, Sam has dedicated himself to awareness of what Alzheimer's is, how it makes you feel, and how you could and should embrace people experiencing this incurable disease.

Sam started his career in Washington, DC as a lawyer for Ralph Nader’s first advocacy group. He then spent ...

Home care is amazing! Older folks overwhelmingly fear loss of independence and institutionalization more than death.  Home Care can save the day for folks when they lose their ability to perform Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) independently.  Caregivers help with hygiene, nutrition, safety, cleanliness and so much more, all while allowing a person to stay in their home and the surroundings that they cherish.

Adult Day Ca...

I was skeptical about whether "Virtual Care" would be a good service for home care agencies, but I was proven wrong.  In summary, this is a great way to differentiate your agency and to add a high-margin service. 

Our guest is Stephan Habermeyer who is the CEO at Calico.Care. 

Here are some highlights of what we learned:

• Virtual Care provides a way to monitor the well-being of home care clients throu...

When Bill Zagorski took over his family's elder care services agency, they were mostly doing non-medical home care. Now they're mostly providing Adult Day health Services and their revenue per caregiver has more than doubled.

As a research PHD,  the leader of 3 adult day health centers, chairman of the Tennessee state association and board chairman on the National Adult Day Services Association (NADSA), Bill is p...

Carla Titus is an experienced Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with a strong passion for home care and day services based on her experience attaining the best possible care for her aging father-in-law.  One of her specialties with home care entrepreneurs is making sure that they are personally successful.

Some of the key topics covered in the episode are as follows:

• The importance of bookkeeping
• How to read your statements ...

The safety of healthcare workers is a large issue and a large concern.  Home Care workers including Direct Service Professionals (DSPs) who provide supportive services for individuals experiencing intellectual and developmental disabilities are especially vulnerable.

This episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars takes on the issue of caregiver safety with our guest Ali Al Jabry, founder and CEO of kwema.co.  Ali s...

This episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars welcomes Joe Kraus and Linda Donev, a brother and sister team who have had a long and positive impact on the Home Care industry. Joe and Linda created the home care software that eventually became the Resmed / MatrixCare solution.  They're back for an encore performance with a new offering called Perks4Care. 

The episode starts with some fun brother / sister bante...

Caregiver Recruiting and Retention is the top concern of agency owners and the most-discussed topic on Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars.

In this episode, Nick Bonitatibus returns to the podcast to discuss How to Create an Irresistible offers in the realm of caregiver recruiting.  Guess What? It's not the offer letter (that's far too late) and it's not only about the money.

Your irresistible of...

Rob Christensen is a home care veteran who has runs 4 agencies and day services. 

Sadly, some clients get to a stage where they need to have 24-hour care and they can't afford to have that service in their home.  Rob learned that facilities are willing to pay a handsome finders fee (generally one-month of the facility fee)  for a new referral.   So Rob added a service for placing clients in facilities.  The results ha...

The defining challenging of home care, long term supports and services, and day services is recruiting and retaining caregivers.  One of the big recommendations that we hear regarding retention is to create career paths, but at the same time we struggle to make a reasonable margin at the rates that we're able to charge.  

Today's guest, in his 3rd appearance on the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast, ...