The entire world is seeing the emergence of the adult day care program that serves multiple populations. Some even have outreach programs with Medicaid and other reimbursement wherein they serve recovering addicts and others who find the adult day care to be a safe haven from their prior world of disillusion and loneliness. Within these same programs are departments that serve the medically fragile elderly and that might provide a degree of physical rehabilitation. We need it all.
The question for us is whether or not there is a downside to such a broad approach and if so how do we overcome it? Well for families seeking to make usage of the value of adult day care or professional care coordinators trying to match a program with a client’s needs, there will be a focus on what is best for a particular individual. If it is perceived that the program you operate does everything, you could end up labeled a “jack of all trades but master of none” especially if you are not properly communicating your multi-faceted capability.
To overcome this for an established program consider departmentalization. This simply means that your corporate structure and operational protocol has specific individuals with appropriate credentials and/or experience supervising a particular area of the operation. Perhaps one oversees services to the medically fragile, one focuses on psychological services to disabled veterans with PTSD, one focuses on those with dementia, one on the catastrophically injured, etc. In the process you heighten your marketability as you articulate your varied approaches, all professionally supervised, monitored and controlled as distinct approaches of your program.
The very image of the program must communicate it is equipped to fulfill its mission from how you are established and governed. This can be reflected in the membership of your Advisory Board and in the day-to-day operation.
For example, typically a hospital serves all illnesses, although it may specialize in preventive cardiac care.
Your clinical adult day care program may have a particular focus that is primary, while at the same time you are equipped to fulfill the needs of a variety of people. Even that monthly newsletter that is circulated throughout the long-term care community must month-by-month vary its writing focus to draw attention to those different areas.
Of course the slickest of marketing is of no value unless the program operates as you indicate it does.
So serve the community well and broadly by taking a multi-faceted approach, but avoid the danger of appearing ill-equipped to focus with precision on whomever may call upon you.
Contact the blogger: info@www.adultdaycaretraining.com
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