I had my summer internship in Comfort Keepers State College in the year of 2018. Such experience helped me learned a lot about in-home care and the health care field in general.
2. About Comfort Keepers
An in-home senior care services provider
In-home care
24 hours home care
Long-term care
Interactive caregiving
Respite care
Dementia care and Alzheimer’s care
End of life care
The goal is to offer affordable, reliable security and safety for seniors
Founded in 1998, has franchises over the country
3. Organizational Structure
On-site Owner:
Dave Hellyer
General Manager:
Debbie Hellyer
Sales & Recruiting
HR/Operations
Specialist:
Lisa Lyles
Office
Coordinator:
Amanda Houston
Clearfield
Sales:
Judy Dixon
Blair & Centre
Sales:
Debbie Hellyer
Sales Consultant:
Crystal Henry
Caregiving
Operations
Client Services Manager Blair
& Centre Counties: Melissa
Ray
Client Care
Coordinator
Kori Ishler
Home Health
Aide
Shannon Maurer
Client Services Manager
Clearfield County
Judy Dixon
Client Care
Coordinator
Tracy Matthews
Office Manager:
Shirley Dudish
4. Mission and Purpose
Comfort Keeper is a for-profit home health aid organization.
The goal is to provide the best in-home caregiving services to aging seniors
who wish to maintain their independence.
To enrich the lives of our treasured clients while maintaining their safety,
well-being, and comfort as they continue to live independently despite
disease and other age-related conditions.
5. Assigned Projects:
quality assessment and performance
improvement plan
Assigned to update the quality assessment and performance improvement
plan with data and information in recent 3 months.
Goal: To check if there is a need to improve the service, training for
caregivers, quality check with client, and et cetera.
Tasks: check the data and information such as clients’ complaint and
safety/quality issues. Make a new chart of quality assessment and
performance improvement chart and enter the new data and information.
Strategy: Compare and refer the past chart of quality assessment and
performance improvement chart. Ask the preceptor in time if have
questions.
6. Assigned Projects:
Fire extinguishers check
Assigned to make calls to all the clients and check if they have fire
extinguishers in their home.
Goal: Get the data of fire extinguisher installation rate in clients’ home for
the safety assessment.
Tasks: Call the clients’ home telephone numbers when the caregivers of
Comfort Keepers serve the clients. Ask the caregivers to check the fire
extinguishers in clients’ home. Record the locations of fire extinguishers if
the clients have.
Strategy: Tell the preceptor to notice the caregivers about this project before
the beginning so that they could have coordinated with me. Be patient but
never accept rudeness and dispute.
7. Assigned projects:
Multiple office support works
Assigned to multiple office support works.
Goal: To better convey needed information to colleagues and leaders.
Tasks:
observation on Comfort Keepers website, research on 5 trends in Home Health
Care, rearrangement of caregiver orientation PowerPoint, designing the greeting
cards for father’s day, remaking the Prohibitive Driver List for the general manager,
scanning the files of declined caregivers or employees into the flash drive.
Strategies:
Divide my times on each support work reasonably. Make sure the details are
correct and be careful on every step.
8. Assigned Projects:
Informational Interviews
Assigned to make informational interviews to every leader in Comfort
Keepers.
Goal: To learn more information and experience about in home health field
and health care industry directly from our excellent team.
Tasks: Ask leaders with multiple prepared informational questions, note down
their key idea, and digest.
Strategies: other than those prepared questions, I asked some questions that
raised from my head in that moment, which extended my outlook in career
field.
9. What I learned:
Strength:
Friendly
Patient
Cooperative
Hard-working
Willingness to learn
Weakness:
Careless in details sometimes
Easy to get distracted
Not good enough in technology
10. Areas for Improvement
& rate of my preparation
Attention and carefulness
It’s easy for me to get bored as staying in my chair for a long time.
I tend to miss some errors or make mistakes as I become dull and get distracted
I have to practice my attention and take a break in time.
Technological skills:
I’m still not skillful enough in Excel or other office software except word.
It’s time to learn and keep practice these technological skills.
I was not very well prepared for my internship. But the related HPA classes
and other skill-related classes did help me a lot.
I was so lucky to have a such kind, amiable, patient, and helpful preceptor to
guide me. Also, Comfort Keepers, as its name, has a comfortable environment to
work in.
11. About HPA as a major
It’s a good choice and fit myself.
Health management has a visibly bright future and
market.
I’m planning to work in long-term care facility in my
future career.
12. Suggestions for future students
Think about what you really want to do in healthcare field
before you start your internship application.
Make a good and early preparation before your internship
start.
Be patient and work hard!
13. Closing Thoughts
Yes! It’s definitely a valuable component of my undergraduate
experience!
It helps me enlarge my horizon in real work field and get to know
about my advantages and shortages.
Allows me to have a basic understanding of in-home health.
A nice practice before graduation.
