Studies identify four main factors of increased quality of care in home care cooperatives

New research on home cooperatives-agencies are co-owned and managed by home care workers-have been included in key factors that seem to significantly improve the quality of patient care.

Scientists identified four main factors of increased quality care in the cooperative, everyone focused on strengthening positions of employees as stakeholders: including employees’ contribution to care planning; Strengthening motivation resulting from being co -owners; selective employment of high -performance employees; and access to high quality, practical training.

In this study, it identifies specific factors that can improve the quality of home care, a relatively unspoken area, but one that has serious consequences for carers and a wider healthcare system. Practices that increase care identified by participants represent testable interventions that can significantly improve the quality of care in the home care sector. “

Dr Geoffrey Gusoff, assistant to a family medicine professor at David Geffen School of Medicine in Ucla and the main author of Study

The study will be published in a reviewed magazine.

Millions of older Americans rely on home care provided by paid carers. But these traditional services are harassed by high turnover, limited training and difficulties in communication with other team members, said Gusoff.

“The quality of home care is necessary to improve the quality of life of care recipients and reduce unnecessary medical costs, but our current system, which often treats home care workers as low qualified and easily interchangeable, undermines the quality of home care,” he said.

Cooperatives can represent a new approach to ensuring high quality home care. “The extension of the cooperative home care model and the adoption of the cooperative’s practices by traditional agencies can significantly improve the quality of home care, bringing benefits to both recipients and a wider healthcare system,” he said.

Home care cooperatives provide older daily help in lives, such as bathing, drug management and meals, such as traditional home care services. Unlike traditional home care services, cooperatives are owned and served by employees who provide these services, which leads to more cooperation and a sense of property for participants.

IN Previous researchThe team focused on how cooperatives can reduce employees’ turnover through such practices as better compensation, a sense of community and control. In this study, scientists have examined which cooperation practices seem to improve the quality of care.

Researchers conducted 32 partially structured interviews with home care workers and other employees in five cooperatives in order to identify the factors of care quality drivers.

Researchers recognized several study restrictions, including the lack of contribution from caregivers and non -English employees, who can provide additional insight into the quality of care quality. They also noticed the possibility of choosing or appealing to response to participants and that additional tests are needed to test the true effects of perceived factors that drive the quality of care.

The next step in research is to conduct quantitative research to assess how identified factors affect the safety, patient experience and health results, said Gusoff.

Additional research authors are Miguel Cuevas and Dr. Catherine Sarkisian from Ucla, Dr. Madeline Sterling from Weill Cornell Medicine, Ariel Avgar from Cornell University and Gery Ryan from Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.

The study was financed by the National Institute on Aging (K01AG088782, 1K24AG047899-07), University of California, Los Angeles Clinical and Translational Science Institute (TL1TR001883, UL1TRTR001881 Institute (K23HL150160) and Doris Duke Characle Foundation (DDCF 2022053).