I created ClearCare because of my grandmother’s need for care. In 2006, my dad, who lived in Austin, Texas, was coordinating care for my grandmother who lived in Macomb, Illinois. As anyone with an older family member in need of care knows, it can be difficult to keep everyone in the loop about your loved one’s well being -- and whether they’re getting the attention they need.
Dad had a hard time getting caregivers to show up on time. He also had difficulty getting the information he needed to ensure that my grandmother was receiving proper care. To get my family and grandmother’s caregivers on the same page, I created a simple process: caregivers would report back to my family with the information we needed to make sure Grandma was happy and well.
Seeing how much peace of mind this process had given my family, I wanted other families to experience the same. My background in engineering gave me the skills needed to make this process something that others could use.
Yet, nothing comes to fruition based on the efforts of just one person. I teamed up with Peter Sheats, who would become ClearCare’s VP of Engineering. Once we had a product that was ready to go to market, fate swooped in and I met John Taylor while walking my dog, Charley (Clear Care’s CMO, Chief Morale Officer). John had a background in sales and he was kind enough to share his insight as to how we could alert others about the product we were offering.
Gathering Together in the Family Room
ClearCare started with the Family Room. The situation with my grandmother was a signaled need for transparency between families and caregivers when caring for a loved one. The Family Room now enables caregivers and agency staff to check schedules and receive real-time updates of what's happening in the home. It’s accessible via the web, which means any member of the family can check in on an older loved one’s status at any time. Agencies then began to provide critical feedback on other areas of their business that could be streamlined so we continued to build scheduling, billing, telephony, etc until today -- we now have 10+ modules to help agencies operate efficiently and grow.
ClearCare: Seeing Our Impact First-Hand
Every so often, we get a glimpse of how our work and our technology has impacted the lives of others.
A few weeks after last Thanksgiving, we received an email from a person whose mother was being cared for by a ClearCare agency customer. Her son, who lived several hours away from his mother, was planning to visit her for Thanksgiving. Before making the trip, however, he logged in to the Family Room and read a caregiver’s note on how his mother wasn’t feeling well.
The comment prompted him to make the trip a few days ahead of schedule. Following a visit to the doctor and medication for her condition, his mother felt well enough to go out with her son and enjoy some fun activities together -- going to lunch, shopping, going to the salon, and just having quality time together.
Several days after his departure, his mother passed away. Seeing a beloved person pass is incredibly difficult, but her son was immensely grateful for the extra time he had the chance to spend with his mom. He knew that this extra time was given to him through reading the notation he saw in the Family Room.
Knowing that we can help give families peace of mind and valuable time with their loved ones is incredibly humbling and makes all of our efforts immensely worth it.
Our Value to Families = Family Values
From the initial process I created to gain insight into my grandmother’s care, ClearCare has expanded to add more value to home care. Our platform evolved to handle billing and payroll, integrate with QuickBooks, and assist with advanced scheduling, marketing and referral management, billing, reporting, and business intelligence. We also have point-of-care capabilities and family and caregiver portals to meet the needs of agencies, families, seniors, and caregivers.
Through helping agencies run their business more efficiently, we support them in doing what they do best -- care for their clients. If you are a current customer today -- thank you for your partnership and the work you’re doing to improve aging with us. For those who are not yet customers, we invite you to get more familiar with our product and the incredible people that are behind ClearCare. Thank you for all you’re doing in your local communities and it’s an honor to be working on challenges that face our older and disabled adults with each of you.
