Author

Thomas Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

Today marks the one year anniversary that I have been writing this newsletter. It seems like it went by so fast without any changes. However, there have been many changes. We have sponsored several conventions and meetings this past year, we’ve done presentations to local groups on the state of home care in general, the Veterans home in Minneapolis has gone through trauma with being fined by the state for lack of care, my mom passed away in May and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, there has been change that we have had to adapt to.

I wanted to write about the benefits of home care again in this ever changing world. November has been set aside as “National Home Care and National Hospice Month” to honor the men and women who have dedicated their lives to caring for others. A time for us to say thanks.

Traditionally delivered at patients’ homes throughout the centuries, home care is the oldest form of health care. It is also the newest.

Modern technology has evolved to the point where virtually anything that is available in a hospital can also be provided at home. And there is significant evidence that home care is less costly than other forms of care.

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice believes we as a society need to re-examine the reasons why home care is a viable, cost saving model of health care delivery. Here are just a few of the many reasons to consider home care:

1. Home care helps the elderly maintain their independence.

2. Home care prevents or postpones institutionalization. Few want to be placed in a nursing home unless it is the only choice.

3. Much scientific evidence indicates that patients heal more quickly at home.

4. Home care is safer. Some 20 percent of people who enter hospitals develop complications, such as infections.

5. Home care reduces stress.

6. Home care nurses and aides consider what they do a calling rather than a job.

7. In many of the rural or dense urban areas, home care is the only available form of health care.

8. Home care improves quality of life.

9. Home care is less expensive than other forms of care, such as hospitals and nursing homes.

10. The Internet will increasingly make it possible to diagnose, monitor, and treat illness at a distance, allowing patients to stay home and health professionals to save time.

Clearly there is evidence that taking care of someone at home is the best form of living and knowing there is a helping hand to walk you through that change is even better.

It’s important to know, Aspirience Home Care can help you with home care.

Author

Thomas Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

The Shakopee Valley News recently published a nice article on our business. I thought I would share what they wrote about us…

“Can we help people with health concerns aspire to a better life?” When Tom Wiest and his family asked this question, the result was the founding of Aspirience Home Care. This Shakopee-based business provides services to people who need help with activities of daily living and health-related functions through Personal Care Assistants.

The realization of the need for a company like Aspirience started many years ago when Tom’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Tom’s father did a great job taking care of her in the early stages. However, this destructive disease eventually took its toll on him and the rest of the family. The inevitable happened and his mother was put in a nursing home.

His mother went from having his dad take care of her at home, in a setting in which she was most comfortable, right into a full-time nursing home. That’s when Tom and the family started looking at the options and determined to create a home-care company that was guided by very specific principles.  Tom, founder and CEO of Aspirience Home Care says, “Our mission is to empower all caregivers to help home-care clients dream more, do more and be more. Our vision is to turn aspirations into experiences. Hence, our company name Aspirience. We understand that we are in the ‘people’ business, like a good neighbor taking care of a friend.”

Aspirience Home Care provides services to people of all ages who need help with activities of daily living and health-related functions through Personal Care Assistants (PCAs). They offer hourly, daily or weekly service, 365 days per year to a wide variety of patients from children to seniors, including the convalescing, disabled persons and anyone else who needs help with daily living activities. Aspirience Home Care will help anyone who needs help with routine activities of daily living so that they can live at home.

Tom comments, “Our home care aims to enable people to remain at home in surroundings that are comfortable to them, rather than use institutional-based care facilities. Caregivers visit clients in their own home to help with many different daily tasks such as getting up, going to bed, dressing, toileting, personal hygiene, some household tasks, shopping, cooking, supervision of medication and more.” “We help out with the daily routine of things you and I take for granted every day.”

Aspirience Home Care services those whose needs are described as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL). ADL refers to basic activities that reflect the patient’s capacity for self-care. IADL refers to more advanced daily activities that enables the client to live independently in the community. Aspirience Home Care is licensed and serves the entire state of Minnesota as well.

Aspirience’s Chief Nursing Officer constructs a personalized care plan designed to fit the needs of the individual. These Care-Giving Services are then provided by Personal Care Assistants who are carefully recruited and trained. Aspirience guarantees its services, and those of its PCAs, who are all bonded, insured and tested. The Chief Nursing Officer monitors each PCA’s activities to ensure compliance with client care plans.

If you, or a loved one aspires to a better, more fulfilling life and could benefit from in home health care, give Aspirience a call today.

The printed article can be found by clicking here.

It’s important to know, Aspirience Home Care can help you with home care.

Author

Thomas Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

Sometimes I ask myself, do all Americans realize what Veterans Day is really about? Over the years, it seems to me that some have taken for granted the freedoms we enjoy in this country. Freedom is something that our veterans have worked hard to ensure that our children and grandchildren have these same freedoms. This liberty allows us, as Americans, to be who we want to be, what we want to be and where we want to be at different moments in time.

It’s called choice.

Other countries do not have these same rights and freedoms that we sometimes simply take for granted. Unfortunately, many of our armed forces have died fighting for our safety and liberties. However, it is inspiring and encouraging to hear the tales of those who came home to share their experiences.

Our veterans deserve to be recognized for their courageous and honorable work. With having young children in elementary school, it’s great to hear and see that many teachers are taking time in their school day to teach our children the true meaning of Veterans Day. I was in my daughter’s Kindergarten classroom recently and it was a pleasure to see the room decked out in patriotic red, white and blue. By educating our younger generation, we can teach them to appreciate what we have in the United States rather than thinking that this is simply how it is, how it has been and how it will always be. Our freedom and our country’s freedom will be at stake if that is what our children believe.

My father served in the Navy as a First Class, Radarman on the USS Norris, a destroyer, for four years. As a child, I remember finding a picture of a ship in shoebox in the basement of my childhood home in Aberdeen, SD. My dad was there with me and I asked him whose ship this was and he said it was his and he explained to me how he served on that ship. He honorably left the service in 1954 and that picture survived for a reason.

Looking back on our nation’s past, November 11^th was a significant day in United States history. In 1918, the World War I fighting ceased at the signing of the Armistice. A year following this historic event, President Woodrow Wilson dedicated a proclamation in anniversary to this day of peace honoring military members for their outstanding bravery for serving our homeland.

To this day, November 11^th has been a day to recognize our current and past military. Because of the many wars and conflicts that followed World War I, it was decided that the term “Armistice” was only relevant to the first war. Therefore, in 1954, the holiday was changed to Veterans Day to honor all veterans serving in times of war, conflict or peace. Today, we recognize all veterans for the sacrifices they made and our current military personnel who are making our country a safe place to live.

On November 11^th, let us remember and honor our veterans by flying our American flags and wearing our red, white and blue in their honor whether at our homes, at work or in our neighborhoods. All of us know a veteran somewhere, tell them thanks for the choice they made in serving our country.

It’s important to know, Aspirience Home Care can help you with your choices in home care.

Author

Thomas Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

I know there is a ‘National Month’ for just about everything but, November is touted as National Home Care Month by The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC). It is a time for all of us to commemorate the power of caring, both at home and in our local communities, by celebrating this event with gracious praise of those who care for others.

It is appropriate that we take a few minutes of our day to celebrate the nurses, therapists, aides, care givers and other providers who have chosen to use their lives to help give strength to the infirm, disabled and elderly people in our communities.

From the beginning of Aspirience, I have said often there is no work more nobler, fulfilling and rewarding that and no group in our society deserves more of our respect and admiration than those who care for others.

Back in 1999, the U.S. Supreme Courts’ Olmstead decision declared a Constitutional right for all Americans to be cared for in the least restrictive environment, their homes. The National Governors Association declared in 2004 that long term care is the greatest problem facing America and that home care is the best solution to the problem. In addition to these moves, the growth in the use of home care is being driven primarily by demographics, the graying of America, the advancement of technology, its cost effectiveness as compared with other forms of care and personal choice. Meaning that home care is all around us, everyday, everywhere.

Another fact is that home care is not just for the elderly but has viable importance to the young and middle-aged, especially chronically ill and disabled children.

Granted, 78 million Baby Boomers will soon hit retirement age, and a large percentage of them will begin to need help to remain independent in their own homes but, at this point, there is no Federal program that helps much with these needs, which also affects as many as 8 million more persons with disabilities who are younger than age 65. Home care needs are vast.

We believe that quality home care and hospice, a humane and cost effective alternative to institutionalization, is the right of all people. Home care provides important skilled nursing, therapy, supportive services and self care training and work in concert with the care provided by family members and friends. Home care encourages maximum independence of thought and functioning as well as the preservation of human dignity.

Home care is the preferred form of health care for millions of Americans as they go through their lives. Even when the end is near, most people appreciate the love and care which is so graciously given by the angels of hospice. Let us take time to celebrate the good that these special people do in the world.

It’s important to know, Aspirience Home Care can help you with your home care options by keeping your loved ones where they are most comfortable and safe, at home.