Care Across America
"Care Across America, an Approved Senior Network® Podcast"—your go-to source for engaging conversations and practical insights from home care and senior care experts across the United States. Each episode will spotlight industry professionals, and their referral networks, sharing impactful stories, proven strategies, and innovative solutions in senior care. This podcast is perfect for professionals, adult children of aging parents, and family members struggling with senior care choices and care.
Care Across America
HomeWatch Caregivers: 45 Years of Innovation in Aging at Home - Todd Houghton, CEO
The aging landscape is transforming dramatically, and HomeWatch Caregivers stands at the forefront of this evolution with 45 years of expertise and innovation. Todd Houghton, President and CEO, reveals how the organization has grown beyond traditional companion and personal care services to meet seniors exactly where they are in their care journey.
Recognizing that 92% of seniors wish to age at home while only 22% can afford daily care visits, HomeWatch has developed a technology ecosystem that extends support beyond caregiver visits. Their Wellness Hub transforms ordinary TVs into powerful care tools, providing medication reminders and secure video connections that combat isolation. Meanwhile, strategically placed sensors monitor for falls and environmental changes, creating an invisible safety net that's already prevented countless emergencies. These innovations allow families to stay connected regardless of distance, as one touching story revealed when a grandmother finally saw her grandchildren after four years apart through the HomeWatch technology.
The company's commitment to excellence extends beyond technology to comprehensive training programs. Their 27-hour certified dementia care program equips caregivers with specialized skills to support those with cognitive impairments while maintaining dignity and familiarity at home. Additionally, their AI-powered care planning system has revealed that most clients actually need more support than initial assessments suggest, enabling more informed family discussions about care needs. With 10,000 Americans turning 65 daily and HomeWatch experiencing triple the industry's average growth rate, their approach of blending compassionate care with innovative technology positions them perfectly to meet the surging demand for quality home care. Ready to discover how these innovations might support your loved ones? Connect with HomeWatch Caregivers today to explore solutions tailored to your family's unique needs.
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Welcome to Care Across America. My name is Valerie Van Boeven and I am going to introduce someone very special today. We are so lucky to be here today with Todd Houghton, who brings 20 years of executive leadership in the home care and franchise industries. Todd home care better than anybody. You've been doing this a long time, like all of us.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:He was previously at Brightstar Care, comfort Keepers, sodexo, camp Bow Wow and Goddard Systems. Bs in Economic Business from Illinois State University and in 2022, he was appointed president and CEO of HomeWatch Caregivers International, with over 400 franchise locations. So we have a couple of things we want to talk about today, but why don't we get started with this? Talk to us a little bit about HomeWatch Caregiver's history and growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so well. Thank you for having me, valerie, I appreciate it. We started in 1980 in Denver, colorado, by a gentleman named Paul Sowers Saw a need to, especially at that time, have resources to care for grandma or grandpa that was staying with the kids, and then he realized the need for home care and started franchising. We've grown over the years.
Speaker 1:In 2017, we were acquired by Authority Brands, a private equity company, which allowed them to navigate the business. They had not been in for a few years and then brought me in to really recognize the fact that we were approaching our 45th year rather quickly. And home care has evolved tremendously, not just in the last 10 years, but even in the last three years, and the need for it to be a more integral part of the healthcare continuum is critical, and so we continue to grow every day. We've been experiencing a lot of growth, with new locations across the US. As a matter of fact, we have brought in about 45 new offices in the last two and a half years, which is great growth, and then really seeing our daily census go up year over year by almost three times what the industry average has been, so we're excited about that as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's great and it's only going to continue to get more and more needed and you're going to I know everyone's going to continue to see growth in this industry sector. 45 years, that is a very long time and a great history of longevity and connectivity with all these communities that you guys serve, so that is amazing. So talk to us about some of the things that are happening now innovative programs and services and recent initiatives, because those really interest me and I know they will folks that listen to.
Speaker 1:Well, as I mentioned, like home care has changed dramatically and the need to evolve and be innovative also has escalated. About two and a half years ago we started by evaluating all of our service lines and making sure that we have the right service line to meet individuals where they are in their care journey. In home care, historically it's been two lines of services it's been the companion care and the personal care Good but not great. And so we wanted to make sure we evolved and can again meet people where they are. So we developed a few new service lines within our Home Watch, caregivers, total Care Solutions. We added what we call active care. Active care is really a tech-forward service line but it allows people to get into care earlier, may not need that caregiver in the house all the time. They can be connected and engaged and fight off social isolation and loneliness through the technology.
Speaker 1:And then we evolved from companion care into wellness care, because really somebody that's at that stage in their needs it's about keeping them well and keeping them active, so we focus on that. Personal care is really what it is, so we didn't really change much there other than enhancing the services that are offered underneath the personal care umbrella. And then we focused on specialized care. So really around an escalated dementia certification program that we have we can talk about that a little bit but also focusing on chronic disease states and making sure that we have people well-trained to care for people that are living with chronic or congestive heart failure or living with diabetes or anything like that. So we're really focused on that education piece. And then we have a more intensified hospital-to-home recovery type program for people that want to get out of the hospital, need to get out of the hospital and recover at home. And then, lastly, we added in our nursing services line so we can move more to a skilled aspect of things as well.
Speaker 1:All of that being said, we felt very confident that we were meeting people where they are in their care journey with the right service lines. But we also wanted to figure out how do we enhance their connections and their engagement when a caregiver is not in the home. So we started our HomeWatch Connect technology vertical, which currently consists of our wellness hub, consists of our wellness hub. Our wellness hub connects to the TV and it can give medication reminders or nutrition reminders or even just appointment reminders to remind somebody that they might have a lunch engagement with their daughter, but it also allows them to connect virtually with either providers or with their family members or other loved ones or friends in a safe, secure fashion that you don't get through other video platforms like a tablet or something like that. It's nice.
Speaker 2:It hooks up to their TV and at this point most of our TVs are pretty big and on a wall. Often the tech portion of this to me it sounds people who aren't quite ready for full-time care or maybe care at all. This is a great step forward in for you guys to be in the home and to be helpful to that family. Before the full-time Home care typically evolves from ease them into it to as their disease or their age progresses. They may need full-time care at some point, but this is a great way to step in and be their partner in care and wellness until they need someone to actually come to the house, or even then it might just be a couple of days a week for grocery shopping or transportation or something.
Speaker 1:I think that one of the staggering numbers 91, 92% of the people want to age at home. 78% can't afford a daily visit. So how do we make sure they're connected and getting some sort of virtual assistance when the caregiver can't be there in a more affordable fashion? So it allows for that and it is something that everybody's very familiar with the TV right. And one of the great things about the Wellness Hub is its capabilities to give a view of the whole room as well. If the care influencer is calling mom, they can see the room and see if mom's been couch planted for a long time or the kitchen looks not clean or things like that. So you can identify additional opportunities to get more care in the home, to provide better quality, provide a safer environment for them too. So it's very excellent. In that way they're not sitting right in front of a computer screen like we are today, where we can't really see what's behind us.
Speaker 2:And, honestly, for those long distance caregivers, this is pretty amazing. Wouldn't want to be able to dial up mom and talk to her. And if they're not great with a cell phone, some are actually most. A lot of our seniors are very tech savvy these days, but if they're not used to using that cell phone or they can't hear it, this is a great way to be able to check in anytime during the day and just say, hey, how's everything going?
Speaker 1:You see a lot less ears and a lot less noses when you have it up on the TV screen. So I like to say it's just fun with that. But and then the second technology that we have in the home are sensors too. So sensors are doing fall detection, ambient temperature detection and some sounds as well, and I think the ambient temperature one is a big one that people don't think about. And we've had a lot of say great story is great. It's probably not the right word, but where we've actually been able to intervene early in a case where someone might have not had proper AC, especially in the summer when it's hot and they could be living with hypertension and that's just going to cause not good outcomes. So we've been able to catch things early and get people the care that they need. So I think the technology aspect is going to continue to grow. Most people don't realize that they need it yet, but they do to stay safe at home, and we'll continue to see it grow over the next year two, three, four years very rapidly.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. This is definitely a great and a cost-effective way for people to get just that extra touch, that extra check-in that we know seniors can use. Oftentimes, tons of seniors can use that, especially if they live alone. So let's talk about the dementia training a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we have our certified dementia training program.
Speaker 1:It's developed by a dementia doctor, along with our clinical care and quality people on our team, and so we just launched it at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1:It's about a 27-hour program that individuals go through to really learn what it's like to care for somebody living with dementia, and then we can go out and live on that brand promise, if you will, that we're going to send in a dementia certified specialist to take care of mom or dad who are living with dementia, but keeping them at home in that surrounding that they're familiar with and giving them the quality of life that they deserve.
Speaker 1:So we're excited about it. This is the year of adoption to get all of our offices trained, and it takes a little while to get all those caregivers trained, but we but working towards that, and so all of our offices that have been through the program have their seal on their website, but they can't have their seal until they have completed their training and getting through that, so we're excited about it. It's a differentiator from what others might be out there and, as we know, more and more people are suffering with dementia or Alzheimer's, and even at an earlier age, which is sad, but we want to make sure we're proactive in providing the right training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is a well. I'm sorry to interrupt, but that is a great differentiator because we often will it's. You can only slice home care so many ways in a marketing perspective, but when you actually provide the training for dementia care, you don't just say you're dementia care experts, you are dementia care experts, your caregivers are dementia care experts. That is so helpful to so many because that is a differentiator that I think is much needed in every community. Someone who's really had the opportunity to experience and train on the reality of taking care of someone with dementia and sometimes it's a really easygoing person and sometimes it's really not so having that training is really impressive.
Speaker 1:So that's great. Thank you, we're excited about it. I think we're also looking at expanding that towards the end of the year to family caregivers and making it accessible to family caregivers, because there's just not enough resources out there for that family caregiver right now and we wanna make sure that everybody has training and can keep people safe.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. And what about any other innovative programs or services coming up? Is that covered most of them? I know there's been a lot actually.
Speaker 1:There's been a lot. I think we've got one. We continue to focus on the tech the HomeWatch, Connect service lines and understanding what other technologies out there and so we are bringing AI in. I think that's our other big one. We're using AI in a lot of different ways. One of the unique ways that we're doing it is in the care plan development aspect of things.
Speaker 1:I think home care has not had a lot of great tools to develop that care plan. It really goes on the person's intake processes and the questions that they ask and then what their gut feels that the person needs. Bringing AI really makes it person-centered and helps make sure that the right level of care is being provided and since we've been doing the pilot and now rolling out, it's been very eye-opening to see that most people need more care than what has been recommended on the intake process. So what it does is allow us to have those deeper conversations with family. We might start here for mom, but know that, based on all the assessments that we've done, she really needs to be here. So we're going to have to figure out how to get there and who's going to fill the gaps of care and all of those things to keep her home safe and secure. So really, I think it's amazing what AI is going to be able to continue to do for us and help us provide the best care possible.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that. There is definitely a place in medicine and in care for AI and truly, when you put all of the assessment data into an AI platform and I'm sure I don't know what you guys have developed, but I'm sure it's amazing. But even if you go as a consumer, if you go to chat GPT and you put in all your stuff and all your labs, of course doctors hate it, but it can give you a better picture of you know or something new that you just don't really think about how can you possibly think of all the different things that could potentially go wrong or could potentially go right and have better questions to ask that family and better questions to ask that client? It really is a nice addition.
Speaker 1:It truly is, and I think even when you go one step deeper, it can help really from developing the right nutrition plan for somebody and all the things around that to prevent any escalation in disease and essentially have more preventable measures in place.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. Diets, grocery shopping lists you name it recipescipes you can get anything you need from that, so that is great. So talk to me about your outlook on the industry ahead. We've touched on that a little bit, but I see that it's not going to go away.
Speaker 1:It's not going to go away right. We still have 10,000 people turning 65 every day. I said earlier, 91, 92% want to age at home. There's definitely not a demand issue on the aging side of it, and I think if we look at even people that are younger living with some sort of physical or cognitive impairment, it used to be that they would have to go live in community-based living or institutional type of living, and home care is filling that gap now, where people can keep people at home and not have to send them out for care. So we'll continue to see that grow as people become more educated on what home care can do for them. We've been for us at HomeWatch. We have had three times the industry average growth year over year for the last three years. We continue to project that for the next five to 10 years as well, just based on aging, population and stats of population.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and the more I think folks embrace tech making it easy for the client, easy for the family to implement or get help with implementing, I think we're all going to see that tech helps reduce some of those costs, especially in the beginning, like we talked about. But still is a connection point and a touch point and received especially by the client, Happy to see those familiar faces on that TV.
Speaker 1:We have stories every day usually, but there was one just over the 4th of July an older lady who finally got to see her grandkids and she hadn't seen them in four years but thanks to technology, because she didn't know how to use the cell phone, but using our technology to be able to see them and see them in their settings, right in their yard, and things like that. And so just when you get those stories, it's just fulfilling that you're like oh, we are making a change in lives and that's what we want to do.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. Thank you so much, todd, for spending a little bit of time with us updating us on HomeWatch caregivers.
Speaker 1:Past 45 years have been great and I know the next 45 will be amazing Absolutely. I appreciate your time, Valerie. Have a good day.
