As a growing home care franchise with over 100 caregivers, Sandi Heintz, CEO and owner at Right at Home Northwest Houston, knew her team needed a better way to communicate and support their staff and families. With phone calls and notes in binders as the primary methods for communicating, the office staff was spending many hours fielding non-emergent calls from families and caregivers. As a result, little was left for other important work, such as clinical discussions with care partners and training caregivers.

These challenges only increased when the pandemic arrived. Families of clients with complex care needs were anxious about the ongoing wellness of their loved ones and sought regular updates. This then put pressure on caregivers to share their personal numbers with families.

It became apparent by March 2020 that they needed an office-approved communication tool that was easy to use and would enable the team to provide ongoing peace of mind to families while reducing pressure on their office staff to handle non-emergent calls. They needed to efficiently close the loop on all communications related to a client's care.

Within their first year of using SparxConnect, the Right at Home team has:

Streamlined Communications:

• Shifted communications from synchronous and siloed (phone calls and 1:1 texts) to asynchronous and open in dedicated client care circles
• Reduced non-emergent family calls by at least 25%; allowing care managers to focus on other needed tasks
• Replaced many in-home binders to increase response time and real-time collaboration

Deepened Trust with Families Through Ongoing Engagement and Collaboration:

• Shared meaningful wellness updates with families; each post received a comment and an avg. of 2.6 views 
• Increased satisfaction and trust with families, especially those who live too far to visit in person
• Extended the length of short term client services, e.g. one client increased time by 200%

Built a Culture of Teamwork and Empowered Caregivers:

• Achieved 77% adoption of SparxConnect by caregivers in the first few months of use
• Increased staff engagement with 1,200 care journal notes and 1100+ chat messages between caregivers and office staff
• Reduced silos by enabling the office team to have visibility into all client communications
• Increased awareness of the value caregivers provide by empowering them to share photos, videos, and messages of the care experience with families and the office
• Improved knowledge among caregivers and office staff by sharing resources and tips