The home care workforce — some 2.5 million strong — is one of the nation's fastest growing yet also worst paid. Turnover is high, and with a potential labor shortage looming as the baby boomers age, there are efforts to attract more people to the job.
One such effort plays out in a large, sunny room in a Bronx high-rise, where Cooperative Home Care Associates holds an extensive, monthlong training program. On a recent day, two dozen women paired off at rows of hospital beds. As instructors coached them, they took turns lifting each other in a mechanical sling, or gently stretching each other's limbs, as is commonly done for stroke patients.
Such training distinguishes Cooperative Home Care Associates, along with the vision of the agency's president, Michael Elsas.
"We think that our workers are ready to use some of the newer technology," he says, "the smartphone type of technology."
Elsas says home aides could monitor and record things, such as changes in a patient's skin color. This could cut down on doctor's visits, perhaps even hospitalizations, "which would lower the cost of health care, have a dramatic effect on the cost of health care," he says.
And Elsas hopes that would have a dramatic effect on how much society values home health workers.
Right now, many get no training at all. There's little path to advancement. And with a median wage less than $10 an hour, it's hard to call this a career. Trainee Mary Miranda came to Cooperative Home Care Associates after a year's unemployment and will earn even less than she did in retail.
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