HouseWorks has named Michael Trigilio the company’s new CEO.
Backed by health care investor RAB Ventures LLC, Newton, Massachusetts-based HouseWorks is an in-home care company that also offers home-modification services. HouseWorks is one of the nation’s largest independent home care companies.
Trigilio officially took the helm of HouseWorks at the beginning of April.
Prior to joining the company, he served as president of the personal care division at Amedisys Inc. (Nasdaq: AMED). Before that, Trigilio was CEO of Associated Home Care.
In his new role, Trigilio plans to draw from the lessons learned at Amedisys, where he oversaw the strategic direction of the company’s relatively small but innovative personal care division.
“Taking Associated Home Care and integrating it into Amedisys gave me a great set of tools to make sure that HouseWorks can continue to grow and be prepared to be able to do larger integrations at an enterprise level,” Trigilio told Home Health Care News.
Andrea Cohen, HouseWorks’ founder and former CEO, will continue to serve the company as its vice-chair. Cohen has been the head of the company since 1999.
During her time, she has led HouseWorks’ expansion efforts and played a key role in beefing up the company’s service lines.
“Andrea’s role, externally, has been a big driver of the success of HouseWorks,” Trigilio said. “She’s very well respected in the industry. I’ve admired what she’s been doing for the past 20 years — as a competitor. She’s going to continue to represent the company in national conversations around home care. She’s also going to continue on the board.”
Building off of this success, Trigilio has already mapped out a number of long and short-term goals for HouseWorks.
“My specific goal for HouseWorks is to expand the lines of business, through organic growth and acquisitions,” he said. “I also want to focus specifically on the caregiver experience and really emphasize the importance of those caregivers in the homes of all of our clients.”
For Trigilio, this means ensuring that the company’s caregivers receive the support they need.
HouseWorks has zeroed in on caregiver training, providing education around the vaccination process and enabling access to weekly COVID-19 tests recently.
As far as HouseWorks’ growth goals, the next three to six months will be dedicated to ensuring that the company’s platform is prepared for larger acquisitions in the future, according to Trigilio.
“My focus operationally over the last 25-years has been taking a data-driven, systematic approach to home care,” he said. “Our first order of business at HouseWorks is to really ensure that we have the platform ready for additional expansion. We’ve been growing. We are in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maine. We see a great Northeast opportunity to continue to grow organically and through acquisition.”
With this in mind, HouseWorks has its sights set on acquisition targets that are established market leaders in their regions.
“Most of what you see are smaller businesses that are growing regionally, and if they were to partner with us, they would find we have the infrastructure to really help those local businesses grow and take some pressure off of these entrepreneurs who are running their businesses in these small bubbles,” Trigilio said.
Looking ahead, HouseWorks is also focused on its home-modification service.
The COVID-19 emergency’s impact on hospitals and nursing homes, as well as seniors’ preference for aging in place, has made home safety a key part of the company’s business.
“We all automatically think of the caregiver — they’re the one stepping in for the family and making sure that services are being performed in the home,” Trigilio said. “But oftentimes, what’s overlooked is how safe the home is for someone to age in. That’s where the home-mod team comes in. There’s a bunch of things they can do to enable safe living at home that isn’t very costly.”
*Editor’s note (April 21, 2021): This story was updated to clarify Trigilio’s previous professional roles before joining HouseWorks.
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