9-Step Process of Finding Quality Caregivers

1. PREQUALIFICATION: All potential candidates are prescreened on the telephone to determine basic experience (minimum of one year professional experience), credentials and license and their reasons for seeking employment with Health People. Qualified candidates are then scheduled for a three-hour in-office appointment for initial testing and preliminary interviewing. Unlike other home health or employment agencies, Health People does not accept walk in candidates. We schedule all appointments in order to evaluate caregivers' timeliness, commitment and follow-through.
    

2. APPLICATION: Each candidate is asked to complete our application paperwork. This allows us to carefully review past employment, schooling and education, and other basic information regarding a candidate's prior history, including professional and personal references and state license documents.
    

3. COMPETENCY TESTING: Candidates are then required to pass a one hour Professional Competency Written exam, designed exclusively for Health People Inc. This exam is unique in the industry and tests for a variety of professional caregiving, intellectual and language skills. The majority of candidates are screened out at this point for not meeting Health People's competency standards.
    

4. IN DEPTH INTERVIEW: Health People Recruiters spend a considerable amount of time with each candidate to assess their reasons for becoming and remaining professional caregivers. We cover the specifics around their past work experience, identifying skills learned, accomplishments met, and overall career goals. We learn more about each candidate during this in-depth question/answer process.
    

5. BEHAVIOR-BASED INTERVIEW SCENARIOS: Each candidate is asked a variety of real-life scenarios, and based on their prior experience, how have they handled such situations. Our objective is to determine the candidate's motivation, willingness and ability to learn new skills, as well as their work, educational and life goals. Through this process, we can distinguish among those who are just looking for work and those who have a passion for caring for the frail elderly with compassion and understanding.
    

6. SKILLS LABORATORY EXAM: Successful candidates are scheduled to return for a four hour Hands On Skills Lab, in which an experienced Home Health Nurse tests each candidate in an actual physical demonstration of their professional skills in patient ambulation, body mechanics and physical care skills. Included in this process is the secondary level of interviewing by the nurse to reaffirm issues or characteristics revealed in earlier steps of the screening process.
    

7. DOCUMENTATION PROCEDURES: Immediately following skills lab, each candidate receives information and training on proper documentation for charting. This important topic is communicated through training and testing in order to ensure all caregivers understand proper and legal documentation procedures. Since each client requires individualized care, following and charting to a specific Plan of Care is essential to job performance.
    

8. ORIENTATION: Caregivers that have successfully completed all aspects of skills lab and documentation procedures are then welcomed to Health People with a complete orientation to our policies and procedures. They are given information on our benefits, recognition programs, and protocol for scheduling and availability. Orientation is a time of celebration and the beginning of an intensive training regimen that recognizes these valuable caregivers.
    

9. BACKGROUND EVALUATION: Only upon successful completion of this entire process and unanimous concurrence by all Health People Team Members is a candidate recommended for reference checking and extensive criminal background investigation by the company's private investigative firm. Our process identifies any criminal history over the past 10 years, nation-wide, along with thorough reference checking.