By Mia Zarrella, 630wpro.com
Bayada Home Health Care provides nursing, rehabilitative, therapeutic, and assistance care services to people of all ages, worldwide.
Mark Baiada, the company’s founder, had a vision when he laid the company’s foundation in 1975. He wanted to provide people with the highest quality in-home care, encompassing all ages and levels of care. In 2002, Baiada partnered with Dr. Al Freedman, a psychologist and parent of a Bayada patient. With the help of the Bayada team, the two created the Bayada Way. Their mission: “to help people have a safe home life with comfort, independence, and dignity.”
The home care staff must embody Bayada’s three core values: excellence, compassion, and reliability. Dana Cruz, the Area Director of Bayada Home Health Care, emphasizes the importance of all three traits in Bayada’s team of nurses. “You can be the most excellent and compassionate nurse out there, but if you’re not reliable, who cares.”
Bayada’s skilled nurses make approximately 900 visits a week to people with chronic, long-term problems and Bayada accomplishes 5,500 hours of certified nursing assistance.
The company is always looking to hire certified nursing assistants, registered nurses, and speciality nurses. “We’re not just looking for a nurse, we’re looking for somebody who is the Bayada Way. We bring them in, we make sure that their personality matches, that truly they’re in this because they love what they do and that they are going to be good with the clients.”
Bayada offers their professionals mandatory and optional educational services. Bayada University provides lessons on site and offers sessions online for the field staff. The physical University facilities are utilized by the 2,600 office staff. Bayada even offers a transition program. “You may be an adult nurse right now, but you’re thinking about switching to pediatric, we can do that. We can train you,” explains Cruz.
Once a Bayada nurse is assigned to a patient, that nurse remains with them—developing a loyal relationship with the patient that will last a lifetime.
“When we hire staff, we hire them for a case,” says Cruz. “As the employee, you accept the case. I don’t tell you who you are going to work with. You choose who you are going to work with and our clients choose who they are going to work with,” says Cruz.
“Our care plans are built with the families and the physicians,” says Cruz. “We’re going to allow you to stay alone in your home longer and be as independent as possible. You’re in charge.”
The nurses eventually become a member of their patient’s family. “We want people in here doing this because they love taking care of people,” says Cruz.
“Our beliefs are our clients come first and our employees are our greatest asset, that is no joke,” says Cruz.
With permission from the school district, Bayada nurses can travel to school with a child, remain at school with them throughout the day, and then travel home with the patient. “It’s a relationship with three different entities: the school, the parents, and then Bayada,” says Ashley Sadlier, Director for Pediatric and Adult Nursing. “And it’s all continuity of care. It’s one nurse throughout the whole day,” says Sadlier.
Though Bayada nurses are hired per-diem, “We have more benefits than any full-time business has to offer,” Cruz says, “You’re picking your own schedule.” And though nobody is forced to work holidays, “We never struggle, ever, with holiday care.”
In addition to the usual benefits, such as health and dental, Bayada offers tuition reimbursement and a scholarship program headed by Mark Baiada.
After working her whole life at non-profits, Director of the Assistive Care Office Lindsey Jamiel was worried about working for a for-profit company when first joining Bayada. Yet, money is the last thing Bayada talks about. “I have never worked for a company that cares more about their people than Bayada,” says Jamiel.
Jamiel wants to emphasize that Bayada encourages people to call them if they are worried about health care and coverage because “we’ll find out if there is anything that covers,” says Cruz, “call.”
Once Bayada is called to provide home care, they engage a 48 hour turnaround period. “It’s our goal, and our Bayada policy, and just the right thing to do. We try to just get the job done, regardless of what we have to do,” says Sadlier.
“We pride ourselves in our reliability in Rhode Island. We work really, really hard in making sure that our staff is fulfilling the hours that you are receiving,” says Cruz. “We don’t make widgets, I can’t turn your light off and open another register, what you do matters here.”
Sadlier says, “Nobody wants home care, nobody wants a stranger in their home, nobody wants extra people in their home, but to see it happening successfully and to see the client happy, the family happy, the nurse happy—that nurse is in a home that fits for them, they’re utilizing the skills that they’ve taken so long to master—to see them satisfied with their job… It’s special, I can’t explain it.”
To learn more about Bayada visit: www.bayada.com or call (888) 990-8947
