Screenshot from video profile of CHCA

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East has launched a new campaign, supported by a website called New Yorkers for Quality Home Care.

The site highlights examples of both state and local solutions that will improve the quality of home care by reducing the high staff turnover that results from low wages and poor benefits. The campaign focuses on good policy and practice models.

Sponsors who have signed on to date are home care industry stakeholders concerned about protecting New York’s home care services, including New York Statewide Senior Action Council, Long Term Care Community Coalition, and PHI.

Good Models of Home Care Employers

A campaign website was created to showcase people who are working to create positive change in New York’s home care industry. It features profiles of both providers and caregivers who subscribe to key principles of quality care.

The campaign’s inaugural provider profile features a short vignette of Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) — an affiliate of PHI — as a model home care employer. The video discusses the importance of creating a worker-centered environment at CHCA, where “quality jobs lead to quality care.”

“There are agencies in the home care industry that are concerned with offering high-end jobs and providing high-quality care,” said CHCA President Michael Elsas, who is featured in the video. “The union is right to make an effort in identifying them, and we commend them for doing so.”

Principles of Quality Care

The campaign stresses the following principles of quality care as ways to achieve positive change in New York’s home care system:

Quality care for home care clients

• Trained, qualified caregiver
• Minimization of turnover and interruptions in continuity of care
• Clear explanation of right to choose one’s home care provider, and information that allows a comparison of quality across providers

Quality jobs for home care workers

• Living wage
• Access to affordable health insurance
• Adequate paid time off
• Opportunities for career advancement (including increased training, responsibility, and wage levels)
• Voice to advocate for needs and interests of workers, their families, and their clients

Transparency and accountability for taxpayers

• Full reporting of expenditures at all levels of system
• Financing system that rewards investment in workforce and in quality care measures
• System that directs public dollars towards responsible operators that have a track record of compliance with applicable laws and regulations

The website was created to serve as a platform of solutions for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East’s companion campaign, Home Care Crisis, which combats poor quality and fraud in the industry. At the Home Care Crisis website, the union calls for more accountability and demands quality care in the state’s home care industry.

– by Meghan Shineman