The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with Homecare Homebase. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of home health, hospice care, senior housing, skilled nursing, and behavioral health. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Lauren McRae, the senior director of clinical operations at the Medford, Massachusetts-based Innovive Health, has been named a 2023 Future Leader by Home Health Care News.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40-years-old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors, and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.
McRae sat down with HHCN to talk about getting into the industry, the importance of being adaptable in an evolving industry and getting payers to buy into home-based care.
HHCN: What drew you to this industry?
McRae: I came into the home health industry — in a human resources capacity — by chance. In this role, I developed a lot of connections with our nurses. I learned more about the services that we provide and I quickly began to share their passion for being out there helping our patients with complex behavioral health conditions.
In my early years, I was actually able to shadow nurses on patient visits and got to witness the astonishing work that they do. Helping people who might not get the help that they need if it wasn’t for our services. Knowing that, at the end of the day, I’m helping our patients get the care they need — even if it’s in an operational or behind the scenes capacity — really just makes this industry an incredible one to be a part of.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?
Adaptability is crucial. I’ve been in the industry now for 13 years and I’ve seen firsthand how rapidly the health care and home health care environment changes and how quickly we have to react.
In order to be successful, we need to be able to swiftly adapt to the challenges and the changes that are presented. We need to be able to pivot quickly and develop a plan to move forward.
If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of home-based care, what would it be?
I think that if lawmakers and payers could really continue to align their regulations and practices to put home-based care at the forefront, it would allow us the ability to service even more patients who need care.
One example of this is greater support towards the severe clinical staffing shortages happening everywhere in the health care industry, particularly in the home-based care setting.
Another example is for more payers to widely accept the services we provide to those with complex behavioral health conditions. Data does show that through receiving routine, skilled nursing services that aid the complex behavioral and physical diagnosis, patients can actually live more independently in their community and there is a lower risk of costly hospitalizations.
What do you foresee as being different about the industry looking ahead to 2024?
I foresee the need for home-based care to continue to grow and for providers and payers to rely more on home-based care than they have in the past.
I think the pandemic has highlighted the need for home-based care and also the effectiveness of it. Now we need the payers, the reimbursement structure, regulations and policies to align with the growth of home-based care.
In a word, how would you describe the future of home-based care?
Critical.
If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?
Take every opportunity that you can get to learn about technology, human resources, finance and all the different components that make the operation a whole. That’s something I have tried to do throughout my career here and it helps me a lot.
Because of that, I try to maintain a holistic view of the organization so that I can help to make well-informed decisions that set up the company for success. A lot of the ways that I have done that is by being involved, jumping in and working in a lot of different parts of the organization. It helps me to be ready to go at any given time.
To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
